Today, in our house, 13 is a really lucky number and I just wanted to share our happiness with our forum friends!

Some of you may remember Danu. She was a gravid wild caught import that laid her eggs for another person but reportedly never would eat for them. She went on to another owner who also had problems with getting this lovely lady to eat. She came to us back in June 07 at only 866 grams.

This is Danu from June 07.....


This picture actually does really tell the story of just how skinny she felt in my hands.

Anyways, we left her to settle in quietly in quarantine in our master bedroom. We did what we'd done with Saoirse, our previous w/c adult female BP. After a time we tried Danu on various sizes of rats but no go. She'd defensively strike at them but never would follow through with the kill. We got pretty concerned as she was continuing to lose weight and down into the 700 gram range. We considered assist or force feeding but hated to further stress this poor girl.

Mike suggested we try ASF's so we got a trio of adults and being ASF's they promptly starting popping out babies. Well there you go.....the trigger for Danu! She adores ASF's, can't get enough of them quite honestly. Hits them before their little feet can barely get planted in her enclosure.

Yesterday we weighed all the snakes. Danu is 1,313 grams! I love the number 13!!!!

She's still got a ways to go and is still on the thin side. By her length and body build she likely should weigh an easy 2,000 grams but we're definitely on the road to good things with her. She's also allowing handling now and although one of the more head shy of our adults, she's not nearly as scared and defensive as back in the summer. She's even perked up enough to take a try at biting me last feeding day....whooohooooo go Danu!

I got so excited about her doing so well I completely forgot to take new pictures. She ate today (3 chubby ASF's!) so I'll make sure and get some pictures to add to this thread in a couple of days. Every minute we worried over this snake was so worth it to see those numbers flash on the digital scale!