It has been three or four weeks since my BP Icculus last ate. In light of this my nerves have been eroding with each passing week and I'm thinking that when I get my paycheck we are going to the vet. Well, so that many of you may learn on my dime, I have discovered a few things I once thought trivial to be quite important. Here they are below:
1) RECORD KEEPING: I assumed this was only necessary for keepers of more than one snake (I only have one) however since Icc's recent fast (still in the midst of it here on 9/26) I have learned that good record keeping can be invaluable. Not only for piece of mind but also so that you can provide specific information to your vet if your herp needs to make an appearance. So I have made a resolution to start keeping records, for example:
Date: 9/28/04
Prey Items: 1 Sm. Rat
Eat?: No
Est. Length: 2.8 feet
(I'm trying to teach myself to go by metric but I'm not really good at it yet)
Est. Age: about 2 yrs old
Spiral bound notecards left on top of the tank seem to be sufficient as a place to write this stuff down.
2)Find a vet well in advance pretty self explanitory, I have a vet back home in Chicago but hadn't bothered to find a good one here in Nashville - thankfully I can begin using http://www.arav.org
That's all I have so far but keep that stuff in mind, I know I didn't.
thanks,
Jonah
PS he looks fine physically - no dehydration, no triangular shape or other sign of starvation - no obeseity - I just worry about him plus this a good excuse to get him 100% accurately sexed! (her?)