Collection Update

[CloudtheBoa]

So I got Howl when he was 6 years old and 4'3", assuming he wasn't going to grow any more, or at least no more than a few inches. When I got him, I could tell immediately he'd been underfed to stay small. He gained a few hundred grams pretty quickly under my care, eating just a small rat every 3 weeks. He's been on that schedule pretty much the past 4 years, with the occasional medium rats to help him gain weight after the 2019 overheating scare. I measured him the other day...and he's grown at least 5" since I got him. He's 4'8" now, but I'll need an updated weight on him. Wonder how much this "stunted" snake will grow in the future.



I also measured Cloud again yesterday, and he's grown another inch since last year. 6'8"!



Nymeria and Tirel are due for another weighing, but considering Nymeria's last weight was just over 2,200 grams, I'm assuming Tirel is at least 2,500-3,000 grams by now. I don't know if Nymeria has reached 5' yet, but Tirel has definitely broken it. Last time I measured her she was 5'2". I try to limit the length measurements to every few months, mainly because Tirel (and Crona) can still be a bit touchy. Nymeria, however, is due for another length measurement soon.





Tirel gets the occasional tiny large rat (no more than 150-170 grams), since she's historically always been a thin-bodied fast-growing girl. Most of her meals are medium rats and breeder-sized ASF, though. She's been getting girthier since she broke the 2,000 mark, but she's definitely built different than Nymeria and Dominika, who are both thicker girls.



Crona is now at the same length Howl was when I got him, 4'3", but he's overdue for a weighing. He still has his days where he bites, but generally I can avoid it by giving him more support picking him up than I would the other snakes. It's when he starts whipping his head and tail around like he's falling when he bites me, and even then half the time he doesn't break the skin. I don't really see any sort of defensiveness from fear anymore, not since the first year or two. With any luck, next fall him and Nymeria will be paired up. She's nice and chunky, but I want to see if she can get more size on her. He's been getting a lot of ASF lately, and he just packed on the girth in a short amount of time. I expected him to have grown lengthwise, too, but he only grew 1" in that time. -.- Maybe he's just building up for a growth spurt. lol



River is hovering right around the 40 lb mark now, and is almost too big to fit in her usual holding tub. I really want to get her out, probably at someone else's house, to get some updated pics on her before the weather turns cold. She continues to be a sweety, and despite being somewhere in the neighborhood of 12', she's easy to move between holding tub and cage. I'll need to get her out against the wall again soon. I have also gotten cleaning her cage down to a science, and can now have the cage cleaned and bedding changed in 30 mins instead of like 3 hours. lmao

Not much has changed with Dominika, but fingers crossed she's expecting come end of Nov or beginning of Dec! This is the first year I've felt comfortable trying to breed her, and I waited until Howl seemed fully recovered. I had him in there for a good 3 months, and he didn't appear to lose any body tone. I have the racks already set up and ready to go, and even if she didn't take, I can use them in the future. But breeding her seems to have helped her with her food response. She went from striking at the doors every fall/spring, to just stopping dead in her tracks as soon as Howl started courting her. She continues to behave now that she's hopefully gravid. The new thing she's doing is hissing, but it's all a bluff. Last time I reached in to check on her she was quiet though. (Three cheers for dusty aspen bedding...eventual plan is to change to coco chips closer to birthing time.)



She's taking food still, but being very hesitant about it. For now she's getting mediums instead of larges, but further along I'll probably drop down to smalls before cutting her off right before birth, as that seems to be the typical approach.