New to ANYTHING related to snakes. My 12 year old daughter fell in love with a Colombian Red Tail Boa and after 6 years of begging for a snake and seeing how calm this guy was, we finally caved. However... we have tried our best to read up and anticipate as much as possible, but are at our wits end. It's been 4.5 weeks and 5 mice later and he still hasn't eaten. We bought the same size (fuzzy mouse) that the pet store was feeding him but he couldn't be less interested. No signs of sickness, easy to handle, curious and moves to both sides of the cage. He did shed roughly 2 weeks after we brought him home. It was a complete, successful shed.
What we do KNOW is that we are having trouble regulating his cage.
- We bought the zoomed desert aquarium kit but were reassured we can adapt in to work (it was the only one they had in stock at the time)
- We have a day time and night time 100W heat lamp that we rotate, as well as a heating pad... but the thermometer stays at 81-82 on the hot side and only 75-76 on the cold.
- Humidity fluctuations have also been sketchy but we have those somewhat stabilized by misting twice daily and covering the screen top with a towel.
We are also going to be ordering reptilinks but they made it clear we need to get his temps controlled first to induce his appetite. We have a hectic schedule and need a simple solution to regulating his temp.
- What temp control system do you all have? We have been researching all of the automatic ones but want to be sure that what we purchase is going to work.
- Humidity still occasionally drops lower than we'd like and have been looking at automatic misters... do you all have a favorite?
We read ALL sorts of care sheets, forums, flipped through books on boas and we honestly thought we were good to go. This damn snake as been WAY harder than we imagined... but we are certainly in love with him and committed to figuring this out! Just please tell us what to do!
Thanks everyone!!!!
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