First snake and first expo tomorrow

[Neal]

Thanks guys! Unfortunately I didn't get your replies until after I left the expo, oops... I wound up with a female pastel from J & S Reptiles--it was a really small expo with local breeders from what I could tell. They said she was born in July, but didn't have weight or feeding records. He said he had way too many snakes for that. He also told me she was eating prekilled rat pups and was feeding well. The vendor also had retics, BCIs, sand boas, a variety of colubrids, and Sulcata tortoises, but they had a ton of juvenile and adult BPs that all looked really good.

I'll have to post photos later. I'm not sure of the length or weight (he said "about 140g" but he didn't seem sure) of the BP I got, I'm hoping to get a digital scale ASAP and I didn't want to stretch her out. She's very active, curious, tolerant to handling and had a very strong grip compared to all the others I held (a larger normal and a similar-sized pastel). They were out of frozen rat pups at the expo and no luck at the pet store, so I'm going to try to order online. I picked up some small rats at the store anyway but I think they're gonna be too big for her. I'm going to leave her alone for a week before I try to feed or handle her again anyway. I also picked up a few more artificial plants to clutter up the enclosure so there are several places to hide now, but I wanted to leave just one fully-enclosed hot hide over the UTH. I'll post an updated photo of the enclosure later also.

@BHReptiles: The humidity seems to be holding really well even with the light, at least now that I have cypress mulch. It looks like it will take a few days to go down from 80%-70% to 50% after being misted. But I'll have to keep watching it. I do have some sphagnum moss if I ever need to make a humid hide for her. Her belly looked pink and she had some dry-looking skin on her head so I think she might be shedding soon.

@asmodeus: I'm hoping I won't have to go with a tub setup, but if she has difficulty eating and seems to feel insecure I might have to consider it :c She spent about a half hour exploring the terrarium after she got home, then settled in the hot hide for a nap, so I'm hoping that's a good sign? And yeah, I went with an IR bulb so that there wouldn't be too much bright light, and there wouldn't have to be a night time temp drop.

@Neal: I'd heard that about IR temp guns not working on/through glass, I've been trying to point it at just the mulch but since it's pretty shallow, maybe it is interacting with the bottom glass a bit :/ I'm not sure whether to go by the probe reading or the temp gun, because sometimes there's as much as an 8 degree difference... It's just the hot hide that's having this issue, but I'm not sure if it's because I let the cool side have deeper substrate (no UTH) so the glass can't effect the reading? I'm confusing myself, never used a UTH before. Such a noob.

Thank you all again for the thoughtful replies, I'll get back with pics soon. Overall I'm not too happy with my choice of vendor, but I do have their business card and contact info, and the BP looks healthy.

Too many snakes to keep birth records and feeding records? That's a pathetic excuse and would of proved my point exactly. Sean Bradley & Tim Bailey both have over 1000 snakes and both of them keep birthing records. Now even with Tim having 1000 snakes he keeps feeding records on all of his snakes. He just wants the money without having to put the time and effort into it. So if I were you I'd never waste my time with that breeder again.

Definitely post pictures once you get a chance. What did you end up paying? I'm curious.