Dominika, Proven Jungle Female

[bigsnakegirl785]

Well, the long wait is over and here she is. ^.^ She's roughly 7' long and her breeder says her last weight before the trip over here was 13.5 lbs. She drove all the way from Raleigh with her breeder, William "Gray" Rushin since he was coming this way to hike with some of his college buddies. Which works out perfectly, I didn't have to drive and I didn't have to risk her health by having her shipped.

She's a 2008 jungle, and had her first ever litter earlier this year. I'm going to be giving her this season off and try her next fall. I have heard adult females tend to take 1-2 years to settle in to a new home, so I may not get lucky quite then. I'm debating on giving her another year just in case she isn't ready, but if there's no harm in it I may go ahead and at least attempt a courtship.

She's in River's old T12, and as you can see I missed a spot while cleaning the shelf the other day...If she leaves the shelf I might take it out and try cleaning it again. Gonna try a bleach solution this time and see if that works to get the stains out.

She fought me getting her out of the transport bag. At first I tried just pulling her out, but she’d just crawl right back into the bag. Eventually I had to just grab the corners of the bag and lift to dump her out. Took me a good 5-6 minutes just to get her out even then. lol

I picked her up on my lunch break yesterday evening, so I didn’t have time to take photos while taking her out, but I snapped these photos when I got home.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/ef2a10d3c3a9b902545e5b3aa4e6269e/tumblr_oikr9bXiuv1sjttato1_1280.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/9b1f60d9cd0828408c6b7f50c50898e0/tumblr_oikr9bXiuv1sjttato3_1280.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/287f5fbf23fb1506fbcf481f0374bf04/tumblr_oikr9bXiuv1sjttato2_1280.jpg

So far, she hasn’t gotten defensive with me at all, but she still doesn’t trust me. While I was taking photos, she was slowly shuffling to the side to get away from me. Just scooting along sideways while still curled up, never seen a snake do that before. She didn’t stop scooting until I shut the door and walked away.

In the last photo, you can see she’s scooted slightly away from the wall. She made it halfway down before I left her alone. I only bothered her for so long because I was so confused as to what on earth she was doing. "Is she getting ready to poop?" "Is she getting ready to go into a defensive posture?" Eventually I figured out she was just moving away from me in a very odd fashion, and I finally left. lol

I'll be trying her on a large rat in a week or two, and hopefully sometime soon I'll get around to getting photos of her pattern and better photos of her color.

[richardhind]

Congratulations on
Your new pick up bsg,she sounds great, I can't see the pictures tho! Can't wait to see her hope she settles on well for you

[bigsnakegirl785]

Congratulations on
Your new pick up bsg,she sounds great, I can't see the pictures tho! Can't wait to see her hope she settles on well for you

Thanks! I haven't gotten a very good look at her myself, I was in too much a hurry to get her in her enclosure and back to work without a 7' snake latching onto me (though she didn't seem prone to doing so). lol

Very odd you can't see them, they're showing up just fine on my computer and my phone on different browsers. :/ Hopefully they'll show up for you on another visit to the thread in the future.

[MartinD]

She looks absolutely gorgeous, enjoy and have fun together

[richardhind]

Hi bsg
They showing up now,was worth the wait,she's a stunner that's for sure
Congrats on the new pick up

[bigsnakegirl785]

She looks absolutely gorgeous, enjoy and have fun together

Thanks! Hopefully she won't be too difficult once I start working with her. I know snakes' attitudes can change for worse or better once they've settled in.

Hi bsg
They showing up now,was worth the wait,she's a stunner that's for sure
Congrats on the new pick up

Glad to hear they came through for you. lol She is real nice, I can't wait to get some better pictures of her.

[Tsubaki]

Beautiful girl you got there :D Can't wait to see better pics of that pattern.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Well I haven't handled her but the good news is she's starting to get a bit used to my presence, she's stopped crawling away from me every time I walk by her enclosure. The one time I caught her on the floor she escaped onto the basking shelf though. Hopefully by the time I go to handle her she'll be used to my presence enough that I won't get bit. lol

Beautiful girl you got there :D Can't wait to see better pics of that pattern.

Thanks! It's going to seem like forever until I can work with her. haha

[bigsnakegirl785]

She just got here a few days ago and I think she's already going into shed. Her eyes are looking milky, at least.

[bigsnakegirl785]

She shed minutes before midnight yesterday (so a couple hours ago), and took almost 2 hours to eat her rat. Hopefully I'll feel up to handling her later this week and start getting her used to me.

I've got a blanket wedged in between the wall and end of her enclosure because there's a cold draft there that was keeping it way too cold, and blocking it off really helped.

http://68.media.tumblr.com/fd88b6466d1dcab52c1b13493276823f/tumblr_oj4yu50duM1sjttato1_1280.jpg

With her large rat. She makes them look tiny, but they should be plenty for her. If not, my father has bred his rabbits and they should be born and large enough for her in a few months. I do not feel comfortable feeding her rats any larger than this due to the fat content.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/a1dfbdfc9fb044e6f336225c8ef940c0/tumblr_oj54oazhsw1sjttato2_1280.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/284f082e5073420cee4c9df7945f81af/tumblr_oj54oazhsw1sjttato1_1280.jpg

[bigsnakegirl785]

Well I attempted a handling session with her today, and man she was a handful. She's very thick, and although I carried her in her bag to her enclosure rather easily, it was another story handling 7' of thick, heavy, wriggly snake. lol

She's very different than Cloud, I'm used to his compact muscles, and she's thick and on the move. She should slim out a bit on her new feeding regimen, but still will give me a work out. lol Unlike my other boas, she made no attempt to grab onto anything or grip anything, but that's probably because all she wanted to do was escape. She quickly got out of breath and started wheezing trying to lug all her weight around.

Now that I've finally handled her, she appears more than just a stout girl, and has a big bulgy look to her even though I doubt that rat left quite that much of a bulge in her. Plus a bit of scale separation. I think getting her back to her original 9-10 lbs will be good for her.

She didn't get defensive, which is good, and I kept the session short to prevent that. I think next time I'll have someone help me with her and get her out into the living room where she'll have a bigger space to move around in. Although I could probably manage her on my own if she wasn't so wriggly, I think I'll probably have to have someone help me out while she's still so nervous.

For now, I'm going to work in short handling sessions and try to do it a few times a week until she gets used to it. I want to get her used to me handling her and get her working out a bit.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Dominika slept like this all day.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/16c2587035a28b37eae8fe4fba15c4f3/tumblr_ojhvuorbJd1sjttato2_1280.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/7e534d0054155978ccdf36659060fef1/tumblr_ojhvuorbJd1sjttato1_1280.jpg

I *think* I managed to get the shelf clean, but it's hard to tell when she spends the majority of her time sitting on it so I can't see. lol

[bigsnakegirl785]

Here are some photos of Dominika after dumping her out of a bucket. I was dampening her bedding and she wouldn't willingly come out of the bucket when I was finished so I had to dump her out. She filled up a decent portion of the bucket, so just tipping it over wasn't enough because she just pushed against the walls to keep from sliding. So I tipped it over on its side until she had repositioned herself to be curled up on one of the walls. After that, she was easy to dump out and came out curled up just like this. Then she sat there watching me in bewilderment for several minutes. >.>

http://68.media.tumblr.com/71d6709562f569cb85cee146fc58bf7f/tumblr_ojx2vxNGpj1sjttato2_1280.jpg

http://68.media.tumblr.com/1875b0b198d2a235338ea88dd571035c/tumblr_ojx2vxNGpj1sjttato1_1280.jpg

I also managed to get some photos of me holding her to gauge her size. I'm 5'1" or 5'2" I don't remember which. After comparing to a photo of me and Cloud, I'm think she could be 7'-7.5'. I was overestimating by what degree her girth made her look bigger. lol

https://68.media.tumblr.com/b6e2086beec90ef4dae8b00c954eb55c/tumblr_okd17lGIVx1sjttato2_1280.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/66af130bef34252f05e0aa4f6106dbc7/tumblr_okd17lGIVx1sjttato1_1280.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/2494ab09d5ce2b05a993dc7b09732b7e/tumblr_okd17lGIVx1sjttato3_1280.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/d298d5b91922d4b1ee74469e0798bf16/tumblr_okd17lGIVx1sjttato4_1280.jpg

I also made a video because she was wriggly and kept almost falling off of me. Which was her plan.

cg1pEcZqOGk&t=1s

[Tsubaki]

The more I see of her the better she looks! Amazing animal :D

[EL Ziggy]

She's a stunner for sure!

[MartinD]

She is one stunning snake, absolutely gorgeous

[bigsnakegirl785]

As a small update, Dominika shed a few days ago and got her first rabbit today! The other 2 feedings I gave her, it took several minutes of waving the rats around for her to finally strike and eat. She immediately pounced on her rabbit. I gave her the same size rabbit I give Cloud, and it left a pretty decent bulge in her despite being decently longer with a lot more girth.

[Scubadiver59]

Great video...keep them coming!

[bigsnakegirl785]

Dominika appears to have slimmed some on her diet, and has shed either 3 or 4 times in my care.

She also got some time outside a week or two ago, the first time she's been outside with me. When I was letting her crawl on the ground, she was her usual self, trying her hardest to get away from me and being difficult. When I let her crawl onto something (I'm thinking a sawhorse but idk), she calmed down considerably and calmly crawled across it and let me mess with her without freaking out much.

It was overcast, so her colors didn't show too well, and it started raining in the middle of the session so she had to come back in.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4167/34762106486_b91aa96c09_h.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4178/34669686291_2da8f88076_h.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4219/33992587133_bf44b0b5d0_h.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4163/34669684391_62551a8853_h.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4268/34762108466_74ebfce7fe_h.jpg

[richardhind]

nice clean ,markins bsg,she looked liked she was having fun on that work bench