Guin, female Picasso stripe

[bigsnakegirl785]

My newest girl, Guin! I got her from Dave at Rainbows-R-Us as well. I named her after Guin from Guin Saga, she reminded me of him. >.>

She arrived with a heat pack and was warm. I tried to use the temp gun on her, but it's completely failed now. Keeps saying low battery or "change battery" without reading any temps even though I just put brand new batteries or freshly charged batteries in it. I'll be ordering another one in a few days to replace it.

As soon as I grabbed her to take her out of the bag, she began to crawl as fast as possible. She just about crawled out of my hand as I was taking photos, but she didn't bite me like Sanji when he first arrived.

She was born on July 30, and weighed in at 49 grams. This weekend when I go to get Bud some live mice (and maybe a rat if I can find somewhere to house it if he refuses, or the mice if he takes it), I'll grab her a couple of fuzzy mice since I don't have any on hand atm.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/10/27/5a16de8e3473321786fe73b0a8e676a1.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/10/27/79902fd804d2c649c47a26c2c3ad862d.jpg

She's got some cool bullseyes, and on her other side she's got some connected ones in a stripey pattern, but she was wriggly so I didn't get any photos. >.> (Also she's got a really surprised face on her side. haha)
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/10/27/14433e873c8a18efbcd94447aa022ff1.jpg

You can kinda see some of the connected crescents on the part of her body going over my thumb in this photo.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/10/27/4721990cd57f18bf59e5348afd8d82af.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/10/27/45d0136dfd63b2aed66182c023a2d93c.jpg

[Wingbeats]

Oh cool, beautiful addition :)

[bigsnakegirl785]

Oh cool, beautiful addition :)

Thanks! This is a pretty cool morph, although it seems it's still in the works. The aberrant pattern morphs and high reds are my favorite types of BRBs.

[EL Ziggy]

Very nice new addition BSG. You have some gorgeous animals in your collection.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Very nice new addition BSG. You have some gorgeous animals in your collection.

Thanks! I think my favorite thing about the BRBs are all the faces and shapes I can find in their patterns. lol

Good news is the little girl took a teeny hopper today! It was around hopper-sized, so I'll buy some fuzzies tomorrow and see if she can take some of the smaller hoppers. Then I'll have some fuzzies on hand in case if she's able to take the hoppers without too much of a bulge.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Some more recent photos. :)

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/03/cbe0ea82ee8ef62f515119043f3f8ee3.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/03/14d96e2c58fadb2c2f37a94d7694ac73.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/03/6be6eb7014a0dd7a2b495f9ea1f15857.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/03/f02c95475ec175bec27eae79e9ac0db8.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/03/9490f2ac962b3f487a7a7a5f8635f896.jpg

Unlike Sanji, Guin actually has some dots all down her belly, especially around the last half of her body.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/03/c1e3f99d9c8f3928fd07064b42241d88.jpg

And she has a really long tail. Her cloaca is up by my palm, at the tip of the tear-drop shape in between her sides.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/03/a9648f42eefbe4c03ed5cac3904009d2.jpg

[Wingbeats]

Awesome! Guin is looking great :D

[bigsnakegirl785]

Awesome! Guin is looking great :D

Thanks! I'm glad she's proven to be such a good eater despite being really distrustful of me, she'll eat right in front of me after rearing up at me and sliding away. She's just bluffing so far, but she dislikes being touched even more than Sanji. hahaha Sanji doesn't even huff at me anymore!

[CrazyAnimalLady]

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/03/14d96e2c58fadb2c2f37a94d7694ac73.jpg



Does anybody else see a ball python face in that marking on her side?

[DollysMom]

Yes, now that you point it out. Very cool. She's a beautiful snake.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Does anybody else see a ball python face in that marking on her side?

Now that you point it out, yeah. lol BRBs always have such wacky patterns you can find just about anything in their patterns, probably the coolest thing about the species next to their iridescence. Sanji has a turtle near his butt, a perfect bow tie at the back of his head, Guin has a bunch of surprised faces, one face that's crying, and that ball python face. I could probably find even more if I had them out and looked them over. haha

[toddnbecka]

Ah, the many faces of Guin... lol.
It's tough, seeing all these beautiful pics of new babies, and I have to keep telling myself I don't have room for any more now.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Well she took her second meal with me today, after FINALLY shedding haha. :) A perfect shed, but was ripped in half.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/17/554d7d89d3d19a5f0e4634329d18dfa0.jpg

[reptiledude987]

So youre using moss for substrate? Do you find that works to hold humidity better than the coco husk?

[bigsnakegirl785]

So youre using moss for substrate? Do you find that works to hold humidity better than the coco husk?

I've never used coco husk, only coco coir. The reason I'm using moss in her tub, though, is actually because I'm using belly heat. I've found heat tape doesn't heat the bedding enough to release moisture from the bedding before it becomes a carpet of mold, even if I make it barely damp. This brand of sphagnum moss I've found to be light and airy enough it dries out well enough on its own, the ZooMed brand I tried ended up molding really bad after a week so I haven't used it since.

Where I can, I really do prefer to use EcoEarth. This moss is way too expensive for me to use as a regular substrate. It's $4 for a pack just big enough to cover the floor of one of my tubs, whereas I can get 21-28 (or something like that) liters of EcoEarth for just a few dollars more.

[Albert Clark]

Fantastic looking reptile. I know she is going to be loads of fun. Enjoy.

[bigsnakegirl785]

A photo from a little under 24 hours after her last meal.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/20/0713d86494f2d21f0b46a7f760e7bf71.jpg

And photos from today. She didn't get as defensive as usual when I took her out, but she was still a bit unsure and tense during handling. After 20 minutes or so she stopped tracking my face and started to actually explore, apparently having figured out I wasn't going to eat her or harm her.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/20/b2105e8bc956d4d52cb49e09f1399678.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/20/ed8c1d5685a2ffdbe0214170504380e3.jpg

A crying face on her side. BRBs have some of the most interesting patterns, it's fun finding faces and objects in their patterns.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/11/20/9d79a2487767fd125e0f7e62678ee1a9.jpg

[bigsnakegirl785]

So her last meal had me a bit worried because of how big it was, and it seems it really was a bit too large. :( She regurged a bit of the mouse, and the rest of it came out a bit underdigested. I think I was right thinking about bumping her down to fuzzies for now. Her first meal was fuzzy-sized and she digested it perfectly, no regurges and her stool was normal.

I'll be giving her 1-2 weeks off food and I'll bump her heat by a degree or two, and completely stop handling her. Then next week or so I'll order her some fuzzie mice. Hopefully this will be a one-time thing.

[Snakesitter]

BigSnakeGirl--

Regurgs are serious business, and how you deal with them can make or break a snake.

One, wait double her usual feeding time to feed again, in order to give her time to recover from stress and rebuild her digestive resources.

Two, when you do feed again, offer one size down from her *normal* prey size. If she was feeding fuzzies before this larger meal, drop her down to pinks (even two of them). The idea is to present smaller, less demanding food items.

If she keeps down the smaller meal, wait another double period and offer the same meal again.

If she keeps this down too, increase *one* of the two variables (food frequency or food size) back to normal, and feed again. If she keeps this down too, repeat once more, and then go back to normal meals.

You temp and handling plans will also be helpful, at least for the first two week test period. Also check to make sure a random heating failure (temp spike/fall) did not cause this.

Good luck, and please keep us posted!

[bigsnakegirl785]

BigSnakeGirl--

Regurgs are serious business, and how you deal with them can make or break a snake.

One, wait double her usual feeding time to feed again, in order to give her time to recover from stress and rebuild her digestive resources.

Two, when you do feed again, offer one size down from her *normal* prey size. If she was feeding fuzzies before this larger meal, drop her down to pinks (even two of them). The idea is to present smaller, less demanding food items.

If she keeps down the smaller meal, wait another double period and offer the same meal again.

If she keeps this down too, increase *one* of the two variables (food frequency or food size) back to normal, and feed again. If she keeps this down too, repeat once more, and then go back to normal meals.

You temp and handling plans will also be helpful, at least for the first two week test period. Also check to make sure a random heating failure (temp spike/fall) did not cause this.

Good luck, and please keep us posted!

Her last meal was an average-size hopper mouse, quite a bit bigger than the first hopper mouse she got, which was fuzzy-sized and all curled up it just about fit on my thumbnail. It was tiny. She passed that a-ok.

I do have a space heater heating the room, so I have also moved her farther away in case it was making her too hot, but I will still treat it as if it was too large a meal as she did seem to be digesting the meal rather long. The regurge was 3 days after her meal, and the poo was roughly 7 days after her meal. Since it was also underdigested I'll be bumping her temps just in case she needed more belly heat, but it won't be major, just a degree or two, from 79-80F to right around 81F.

Her heat tape is all in line, if it was a temp spike I can only guess she was receiving too much heat from space heater as the room is rather warm on cool nights when the space heater runs constantly.

As far as the meal size, I will still be ordering fuzzies for her normal meal size, but I may go ahead and offer a mouse pink until I'm sure she'll keep her food down. I am going to wait 2 weeks to offer any more food, since her normal schedule will be every 7 days.

I will update everyone on her condition once she gets her next meal, and hopefully with the reduction in prey size she'll be ok after this.

(Also another thing that makes me think it was the meal size was that I found the regurge later that night after my handling session with her. It had been ~3 days since her meal, so she should have digested it enough that a regurge issue should have been minimal. She had not been even touched once before I handled her that day.)

[Snakesitter]

A three-day post-meal handle delay should normally be fine. I use two days and rarely have an issue...but will wait longer with especially large meals. Please keep us posted!