Ehhhh...kind of.
First off...it's a snake. It really doesn't do much...I mean, you can't play catch with it or anything(although I'm not sure it's any less intelligent than some of my friends dogs)....but I knew that. In an effort to let her get adjusted, I have only handled her three times in that 10 day period...once when we put her in the cage, once when we cleaned her tank out 100% on Sunday, and then again last night. Last night was the first time I held her just for that purpose, and let her kind of slither over the girls a bit while I supported her weight.
Personality wise(if you can call it a personality) she is an amazingly docile snake...not so much as a his any of the times she's been handled, although she did flinch a bit yesterday and tighten around my wrist when Maureen kind of lunged at her.
She likes hiding in her tank, buried under the aspen bark, which is a bit of a bummer...such a pretty snake, and she doesn't do a lot of posing.
Care and maintenance are a breeze. We fed her last Wednesday, 2 days after getting her. I noticed she was spending a lot of time with her head up, looking around, which I took to be 'hunting' behavior. I took a frozen mouse out of the freezer, and ran it under a trickle of water in the sink for a while, finally letting it sit in some 100 degree water once it was thawed, trying to raise it to the right temperature for a mouse. When it felt warm enough, I took the lid of the tank, which got her attention, and used a pair of tongs to lower the mouse in by it's tail. A few seconds of shaking, and it was all over. She close to about 4 inches away, then WHAM! She grabbed it them ducked back into her log to do the dirty work.
She rested a lot the next few days, until about half an hour after I cleaned the tank on Sunday, at which point she was active exploring the tank, and then all the sudden there was a mouse size turd in the tank. Cleanup was easy with some toilet paper. One mouse in, one mouse sized poop out 4 days later, and she should be ready to eat again here in the next day or two...I'll probably try during the day Saturday. Really, thawing the mouse out is the worst part. I may even start naming the mice to increase my enjoyment...
I'm glad that the kids are fascinated by her...every time I have had her out of the tank, they have wanted to touch her, which is cool. There will be no animal related squeamishness in this household, unless it's daddy flipping out about spiders...
She's beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI raised a ball python from hatchling to almost three feet long. His name was Kaa. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, can't say I got to raise this one, but the price was right...as far as length, the tank is 4 feet long, and so the snake has to be every bit of 3 feet 10 inches...I've only seen her totally stretched out in there once, and she was 'this short' of reaching end to end. According to her previous owner, she is about 4 years old, so she still might have a little bit of growing to do.
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