The Shelby Thread :)

[Will0W783]

Since my friend Alessia (alessia55) has come to visit a few times and taken some really awesome pictures of my little guy, I figured I'd start a thread on him. Shelby was born in April of 2011, and is a CBB albino monocled cobra (Naja kaouthia).
He was bred by my venomous mentor, and I brought him home after my mentor told me he felt I was ready. I'd been working with his cobras, and was comfortable with their movements, had stopped being startled by the loud hissing, and could anticipate when a lunge was coming.

I found the cobras very similar in behavior, movements and attitude to my tiger rat snake, Spilotes pullatus. The cobras were louder, but actually bluffed more and were easier on the hook than the rat snake. They don't hold still for a second though, but they are fun to work with.

Shelby has been a delight to own. He's quite laid-back for a cobra, but is just now experimenting with his hood (like a little boy discovering his you-know-what) so I expect that I'll be seeing that pretty flare more often as time goes on. He eats like a PIG...cobras have very fast metabolic rates for snakes, and they poop a lot. I thought corn snakes were bad- I clean Shelby's cage about 2-3 times a week. He is fed once every 5-7 days on a small mouse fuzzy. Cobras do better being fed smaller prey items more often, as they don't have quite the swallowing capacity of pythons and boas.

Anyway, enough babbling. Without further ado, here is my little hooder: