Shayna - Our Albino Spider Ball

[dakski]

Shayna shed two nights ago and left me some presents.

I took some pictures yesterday, with just the iPhone, but Shayna looks stunning. She also weighed in, dry, at 1,800G. That's a new top weight for her. She's loving small rats every 2 weeks versus medium rats when she felt like it. She strikes most meals now, and even if she doesn't, grabs the rat with gusto and drags into her house, etc. This time last year, she was 100G or so below where she is now.

I thank this forum, and Deborah, for encouraging me to feed smaller meals and not stick with my status quo. It's definitely doing wonders for her.

Even "seasoned" reptile owners can continue to learn and grow. It's important for all of us to want what's best for our animals and be open to the idea we don't always know what that is. I keep many species, and took for granted my BP knowledge, since I've had that species the longest. What I didn't take into account was that I hadn't revisited and caught up my knowledge recently, with BP's anyway. Frankly, snake wise, I knew more about Boas and Carpet Pythons, and Corn snakes until I dug into BP's again for Shayna's benefit.

My point is, be humble and check in from time to time to see if there are new theories, beliefs, or best practices, for a certain species you have. 90% of the time, it will all be good, but even this small change in prey size, counter intuitive as might have seemed, has done wonders for Shayna.


Shayna has had 9/10 rats since March, vs. 8/10 when I fed mediums last year. That may now seem consequential, but the weight gain is, and her newfound zest for eating is. I am interested to see how she does this winter when she usually fasts for 5 months and loses 7% or so of her body weight.