Howl and Dominika

[CloudtheBoa]

So I've got two new snakes. Howl (from Howl's Moving Castle) is a 2010 male ghost, about 4'-4.5' long, I'll need to get a measurement on him once he settles in. His previous owner was feeding him a small rat every 2-3 weeks. I'm still debating on if/how I'll change his feeding schedule. He's got great body tone, just a teeny male. I may try him on a medium just to see how he does on them, otherwise I'll stick to smalls. I may just put him on rats the size of Layne Labs' small/medium rats and feed him on a 4 week schedule. I'll play it by ear. He arrived here yesterday.

When he arrived, he had a bit of nose rub, and looked a bit dry around the face, but overall appears to be in good health. His face already improved a bit during the ~7 hours he'd been here, so I think it was just from the ride here. The nose rub maybe not, in my experience with River it can be hard to tell how old a rub is. I'll see how he does over the next few weeks, and offer him a small rat in about a week.


He is quite pale and clean, though, which I love. His eyes are also different than I was expecting. Tirel's are silver and very bright-colored, his are more of a dark steel gray.


These photos were from when I unboxed him, he came out docile but extremely curious about everything. He took several long gulps from his water dish and explored before I left for work. When I came home, he was under one of his paper towels.








I checked on him long enough to make sure he was still breathing and take a few clearer photos. His nose looked almost normal when I checked on him this morning. Couldn't see the side of his face or under his eyes very well but I'm hoping all the sunkenness was just dehydration from being shipped.







Dominika is a 2008 proven jungle female from Gray Rushin, he she's somewhere around 7' and 11 lbs last time he weighed her. She had her first litter earlier this year. He's been feeding her to get her back up to weight to be bred this year, but between quarantining her and Howl, and her just having a litter I'll be giving her this season off. She won't be here until December probably, he'll be dropping her off on his way to hike the mountains. I saw someone with one of his boas in July or August, checked out his website, and saw her daughter. I fell in love, but decided to go with her mom since they were similarly priced and she was ready to breed. She's not too bad-looking herself, either. I really like the clean contrasted look her and her litter have. I'm hoping Howl's cleanness and whiteness accentuates that.

She normally gets large rats according to the history he posted on her profile, but has been getting jumbos to aid in weight gain. Since she's up to weight again I'll probably put her back on larges.



Although they won't be my permanent pair (I've still got 2 other females and another male for breeding), I'm getting them around the same time and they're adults so I won't be updating them as often since it's harder to photograph them and not much will be changing. I might photograph Howl more, though, since he's a nice size for arm-photographing. Not the best, but he sorta fits. haha