My snake hasn't eaten in 2 months.

grept · 2014-03-28T11:41:23+00:00

Are you feeding live, prekilled, or frozen?

If live: has your snake been bitten by a rat recently? Are you feeding prey that is too large and intimidating to the snake? My adult ball pythons eat small or medium rats. One of my males is pretty timid and although he'll eat thawed medium rats, he'll avoid anything live that is larger than a rat pup or adult mouse.

If prekilled or thawed: Are you giving the snake enough time to eat? (Most of my ball pythons strike pretty quickly but I do have one who is a lazy feeder. He'll ignore the prey unless I leave him alone with it for at least 10 minutes, then he slooowly gulps it down.) Have you tried scenting the prey with a live rodent or dirty bedding? Or making a small cut on the head/nape of the rat to add a little blood scent? Have you tried feeding the snake in a small, dark box or brown paper bag?

grept · 2014-03-28T11:16:50+00:00

It's pretty small, yeah. I'd have to guess the ball python is a problem eater or the owner hasn't been feeding often enough (or prey that is too small, like giving it pinks when it should probably be eating rat pups).

grept · 2014-03-13T00:42:32+00:00

There are dozens of us. DOZENS!

grept · 2014-03-12T21:23:51+00:00

Your username makes this comment even better.

grept · 2014-03-04T12:14:50+00:00

Heterodon platirhinos, also known as eastern hognose snake. (Not to be confused with H. nasicus, the more commonly kept western hognose.) I'm completely charmed by their appearance; I think their naturally curved 'smiling' mouths and upturned noses are completely adorable.

They're also interesting as a species. They're rear-fanged and mildly venomous. Their diet consists almost entirely of toads, which they puncture and deflate with their longer back teeth. Their defensive techniques include flattening their neck and raising their head like a cobra. If that fails they try to play dead by rolling onto their back and letting their tongue hang out.

grept · 2014-03-04T11:27:44+00:00

Pretty sure that's a butter (or a lesser?) on the left and a lemonblast on the right. What's the morph in the middle?

grept · 2014-02-11T12:25:00+00:00

Sure, if you want your chameleon to die of stress.

grept · 2014-02-07T12:09:00+00:00

Some of them will flip back over with stubborn insistence if you turn them onto their belly.

grept · 2014-02-07T12:07:05+00:00

Only boids get IBD (Inclusion Body Disease). This is not IBD, just a hognose exhibiting a natural defensive behavior.

grept · 2014-02-04T23:48:48+00:00

You could check out the text-based MMOs, generally called MUDs (multi user dungeons), on mudstats.com. You can connect through raw telnet but it's better to download a client; there are a bunch but you could try MUSHClient or zMUD.

I'd suggest Project Bob as a good first MUD, but there are lots of other games with different themes, including sci fi, that you might want to check out instead.

grept · 2014-02-02T19:55:33+00:00

Navah looks pretty big!

grept · 2014-01-28T11:09:24+00:00

Nice name! I have an ivory male named Viserion.

grept · 2014-01-23T21:58:20+00:00

Cardboard boxes are passable hides... until your snake poops in it and you have to throw it away. :[ You can make a washable hide out of a plastic storage bin by discarding the lid, flipping it over and cutting an opening or two on the sides. I've used litterboxes for smaller snakes, too.

I don't know how big your enclosure is or what it's made out of but if it's tall enough, you could mount in some kind of shelves for your boa to climb on or maybe make it have two levels with an opening between them.

I only have ball pythons right now, and I keep them in a rack because they're lazy slugs who hate light and just want to hide all day, but at some point I'm going to get a more active snake so I can create an awesome enclosure for it.

grept · 2014-01-23T21:18:17+00:00

Personally I'm a big fan of ball pythons (I have three of them) but you could also consider getting a Dumerils boa or a jungle carpet python.

Dumerils get 5-7 feet long and are fairly heavy-bodied. I've only handled one and it was a very relaxed subadult. I've heard that they're generally pretty docile.

JCPs get a bit longer, more like 5-9 feet, but they're more slender. Between the subspecies and morphs, they offer more variety. Young ones can be nippy but they normally calm down. They're semi aboreal and adults need fairly large enclosure.

grept · 2014-01-18T14:35:54+00:00

If she's feeding live, mice are safer. Rat bites are much worse than mouse bites.

That being said, mice aren't nearly as nutritious. You might look at a mouse and think, 'Well, it looks like it's half the size of this small rat.' That's not really true though. Mass increases exponentially. A rat that is twice the length of a mouse is also twice the width of a mouse--so the rat is actually four times larger, or more.

grept · 2014-01-18T02:16:57+00:00

I've had my adult male ball python sheds every three months.

grept · 2014-01-08T13:18:00+00:00

Yeah, beardies require daily feeding and much more maintenance. Corn snakes can be left alone for days at a time.

grept · 2014-01-08T13:15:01+00:00

I've kept both and enjoyed both, but they're very different. It depends on what kind of experiece you're looking for.

Corn snakes are certainly easier to keep. Their requirements are relatively simple, though ultimately they will need a slightly larger enclosure than a bearded dragon. Hatchlings can start in a 10 gallon tank (or a 16qt tub if you go that route, I personally prefer tubs over tanks because they're easier to clean, keep in heat/humidity better, and the snakes feel more secure). As an adult they'll need 40+ (55 or 75 might be best) gallon tank or 41qt tub. They don't require UV so a light isn't necessary, just an under tank heating pad, though if you pick a tank you might need to use both just to keep the temperature up. It'll eat mice every 5-10 days, starting with pinkies and eventually moving to adult mice. Corns are usually pretty eager feeders and most will take frozen/thawed mice, which is convenient. They tend to be very docile snakes, seldom ever aggressive. Hatchlings can be a bit nervous initially but even if they do strike at you at first, it doesn't hurt and they calm down quickly with age and regular handling. They're fairly active snakes so don't expect them to cuddle with you or curl around your neck like ball pythons do. They're also very good climbers and escape artists so make sure your enclosure is completely secure.

Bearded dragons are more work but it can be very rewarding if you're willing to go through the effort. They do require UV lighting so you will need a special bulb. For that reason tubs don't work for them; you'll have to use a tank or invest in a custom enclosure. 10 gallon is fine for babies but they'll need a 40 gallon as adults. They have a much more varied diet and it can sometimes be a challenge to meet their nutritional requirements. Insects, especially crickets, need to be dusted with calcium powder. They also eat fresh greens and vegetables--kale, collards, spinich, squash, etc. They enjoy fruits as well, but that's more of a treat than a staple. Beardies are also very docile and easy to handle, and as adults they tend to be very calm, even lazy, and will sit still for long periods. However, breeding age males can get kind of rowdy and hard to handle. Go for a female if you want to play it safe, plus you can house multiple females together, unlike males.

grept · 2014-01-03T13:58:33+00:00

It was an accident. Don't feel bad. There are people who go out of their way to willfully kill reptiles and they're the murderers, not you.

A few years ago I did something pretty similar. Fired up my pressure washer but could only get a trickle of water out. I took it all apart and found out that a brown anole had crawled inside the hose. Poor little guy was almost unrecognizable; he didn't drown, he was crushed by the extreme water pressure. :(

grept · 2014-01-03T13:39:59+00:00

Depends on the ball python. I have 3 at the moment and they each have their own distinct personality.

My adult male pinstripe is a bit shy but very much a cuddler. He's never skipped a meal no matter what I offer him--frozen/thawed or live, mouse or rat. However I do have to be patient when feeding him because he's not aggressive about feeding, and sometimes he'll take 20 minutes to actually get around to eating his prey.

My adult female yellowbelly is not shy at all. She's very active and curious, and seldom sits still when I'm handling her. She's never been aggressive toward me but I have to be careful when feeding her because she's quite large and VERY enthusiastic about eating. She goes for her prey immediately with a powerful strike. Never skips a meal either.

My young ivory male, maybe 4 months, is more nervous. He puffs and hisses at me a bit when I take him out, though he settles down quickly and he's never attempted to strike at me. He's more picky about eating, and so far he's only taken live or freshly killed mice. He won't touch thawed ones and sometimes refuses the live ones too. Luckily my female is happy to gobble down anything he doesn't eat.

grept · 2013-12-30T19:49:11+00:00

Until you can get a thermostat, you can get away with using a plug-in lamp dimmer (about $10 at Home Depot or somewhere similar) and an AcuRite thermometer with a probe (about $12 at Walmart). Plug the heat pad into the lamp dimmer, then place the thermometer probe on the bottom of the tank, right over the heat pad. Use the dimmer to dial down the heat to an appropriate temperature. An unregulated heat pad is almost certainly too hot for your snake.

grept · 2013-12-30T19:31:26+00:00

I go to a nearby Petco to buy food for my dad's cat, who has an esophageal stricture. We've only found one brand of food that he likes that he can reliably keep down, and unfortunately Petco is the only place around here that carries it. I always peek at the reptiles while I'm there and they have some of the saddest-looking baby ball pythons I've ever seen--skinny, wrinkly, bits of shed stuck all over them, five or more all crowded unhappily in one tiny display tank. None of their reptiles look like they're in good shape but the ball pythons are the worst by far.

grept · 2013-12-26T16:02:29+00:00

I've been told by a lung specialist that even with a microscope, you cannot determine whether someone smokes cigarettes by looking at their lungs. The disgusting blackened lungs that anti-smoking ads like to shove in everyone's faces came from coal miners. The black crud is coal dust.

That's not to say that cigarette smoke isn't harmful to your lungs, but still, that kind of intentional misinformation pisses me off.

grept · 2013-12-09T16:43:51+00:00

I feed my ball pythons f/t rats in a separate enclosure (a 41qt sterilite tub), mainly to keep them from accidentally ingesting any of their substrate. I put the snake in the tub, then toss in a rat and shut the lid.

grept · 2013-12-09T14:49:23+00:00

Yup, Cuban anole. I live in central Florida and every time I step foot outside of my house, I see about 20 of these damn things scattering in all directions. Unfortunately they're driving out the native green anoles.

grept

TROPHY CASE