Howl and Dominika

[cristacake]

I love Howl! He is so cute


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[CloudtheBoa]

I made sure to handle him last, but I wanted to get some more handling time in with Howl and get some more photos. He's quite sweet, and although he's still getting used to everything he has yet to hiss, huff, or strike at me. Makes slow, deliberate movements, too. Very curious about anything that comes within reach of his head.


I'm going to wait to weigh him until he poops, but I'd put him at somewhere around 2-3 lbs.

[CloudtheBoa]

Well, Howl shed for the first time (with me) this past Tuesday.


This is several days (somewhere around 4-5 days) after I started suspecting him going into a shed cycle, taken Nov 25. He went blue 4 days later.





This was taken yesterday, he's been giving me the food face since he shed. Unfortunately, all of my snake food had to be thrown out because of another fridge failure. Our new fridge doesn't have the room for all my snake food, so I have to wait until we bring my father's chest freezer over. So for now hungry snakes have to stay hungry. So long as we can get someone to actually come over and move the freezer within a reasonable time frame FOR ONCE, I should have more snake food not this coming week because I work all day every day until Friday, but the following week.




Also, Dominika will be here on the 21st! I'm in the middle of getting enclosures ready as we speak.

[Meerna]

Aww, I love Howl. Pictures like that make me want a boa

[CloudtheBoa]

You should definitely get one when you can, Meerna! They're great snakes, definitely my favorites.

Here's some photos of him from tonight. He wasn't happy with me because I was gently rubbing him to make sure he knew it was me. He's already wrapped my hand once, while I was putting his water dish back after changing it. haha A quick bite and release, even from a boa Cloud's size (6.5') isn't bad, but a feeding bite is another story. It burned pretty bad as he got me at the bend of my thumb and left a couple teeny tiny teeth.


You can't really see it too well because his eyes are dark, but the dilated pupils tell you he's not a happy boy.














I keep meaning to weigh him, but I'll get around to it, definitely before I feed him next.

[CloudtheBoa]

Well, the long wait is over and here she is. ^.^ She's roughly 7' long and her breeder says her last weight before the trip over here was 13.5 lbs. She drove all the way from Raleigh with her breeder, William "Gray" Rushin since he was coming this way to hike with some of his college buddies. Which works out perfectly, I didn't have to drive and I didn't have to risk her health by having her shipped.


Just as a refresher, she's a 2008 jungle, and had her first ever litter earlier this year. I'm going to be giving her this season off and try her next fall. I have heard adult females tend to take 1-2 years to settle in to a new home, so I may not get lucky quite then. I'm debating on giving her another year just in case she isn't ready, but if there's no harm in it I may go ahead and at least attempt a courtship.


She's in River's old T12, and as you can see I missed a spot while cleaning the shelf the other day...If she leaves the shelf I might take it out and try cleaning it again. Gonna try a bleach solution this time and see if that works to get the stains out.


She fought me getting her out of the transport bag. At first I tried just pulling her out, but she’d just crawl right back into the bag. Eventually I had to just grab the corners of the bag and lift to dump her out. Took me a good 5-6 minutes just to get her out even then. lol


I picked her up on my lunch break yesterday evening, so I didn’t have time to take photos while taking her out, but I snapped these photos when I got home.











So far, she hasn’t gotten defensive with me at all, but she still doesn’t trust me. While I was taking photos, she was slowly shuffling to the side to get away from me. Just scooting along sideways while still curled up, never seen a snake do that before. She didn’t stop scooting until I shut the door and walked away.


In the last photo, you can see she’s scooted slightly away from the wall. She made it halfway down before I left her alone. I only bothered her for so long because I was so confused as to what on earth she was doing. "Is she getting ready to poop?" "Is she getting ready to go into a defensive posture?" Eventually I figured out she was just moving away from me in a very odd fashion, and I finally left. lol


I'll be trying her on a large rat in a week or two, and hopefully sometime soon I'll get around to getting photos of her pattern and better photos of her color.

[Reinz]

Your story about Dominika is similar to mine when I brought Punch home. His stats are similar to Dominika's as well except for being a male. I like her looks, I sure hope your projects with her pan out.

[CloudtheBoa]

Your story about Dominika is similar to mine when I brought Punch home. His stats are similar to Dominika's as well except for being a male. I like her looks, I sure hope your projects with her pan out.

I'll be feeding her less so she may slim out, her breeder says she's even heavier than last year when she was gravid. He's been feeding her xl and jumbo rats every 1-2 months to try to get her ready to breed again this year. I don't plan on breeding her until next year though so I'm dropping her down to her usual large rat once a month.

It's hard to tell if the 7' is accurate, she looks closer to Cloud's size when stretched out in her 4'x2' but she's so much thicker than him she looks bigger. I'll get a measurement on her eventually once she settles in.

Also she looks like she's going into shed her eyes have been looking milky the past day or two.

As an update on Howl I finally weighed him and he's 917 grams.


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[Reinz]

Yeah I know what you mean about getting a measurement and the large girth making it harder to estimate. I got lucky with Punch stretching out alongside of some furniture.

His previous owner had him on 1 to 2 Colossal rats every 1 to 2 weeks. I changed that right away to 1 XL per month.

I didn't weigh him until after a year. He's at 14.5 lbs right now and maintains that nice square Boa shape.

Sounds like you'll have Dominika in good shape when she breeds.

[CloudtheBoa]

Yeah I know what you mean about getting a measurement and the large girth making it harder to estimate. I got lucky with Punch stretching out alongside of some furniture.

His previous owner had him on 1 to 2 Colossal rats every 1 to 2 weeks. I changed that right away to 1 XL per month.

I didn't weigh him until after a year. He's at 14.5 lbs right now and maintains that nice square Boa shape.

Sounds like you'll have Dominika in good shape when she breeds.

Yeah cutting out the fatty xl and jumbos will go a long way to getting her to thin out. She's roughly 3-4 lbs heavier now than she was when she was bred last year. Which, weight is good, but only when it's muscle. She's not bad though still has a good body tone, I just don't want to risk my first breeding to a possible liver failure. I think 10-11 lbs will be a good weight on her.

Just a few hours after my last post she went milky all over. Her last shed was recorded about a month ago, so it's a bit early.


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