Late Holiday Purchase...

[Scubadiver59]

Originally Posted by Roman

I keep my Gonyosomas in an enclosure 120 x 80 x 150 cm (ca 4 x 3 x 5 ft). I would prefer to give them some more length, but this is what I have right now. It seems to be OK so far, the snakes prefer more vertical space than horizontal space.

What the snake is showing in the picture is the first stage of it’s defensive behavior. Inflating the neck and tongue flickering. My trio are CB, I have them since 2013 and they will still react defensive if I come from above them. Occasionally they will bite even in situations they would usually just be curious, they are sometimes a little unpredictable. So I doubt that this kind of behavior will fade with time, especially if most movements will be above the snake.

Roman

Helluva an enclosure!! Did you build that yourself or did you purchase it? And how much did it cost?

I'm thinking of something along this line (4'x2'x6')...

[jjhill001]

Originally Posted by Scubadiver59

Helluva an enclosure!! Did you build that yourself or did you purchase it? And how much did it cost?

I'm thinking of something along this line (4'x2'x6')...

Start growing the ficus and other plants now. I'm having a heck of a time getting clippings to grow in a setup with a full grown snake in it lol.

[Roman]

Originally Posted by Scubadiver59

Helluva an enclosure!! Did you build that yourself or did you purchase it? And how much did it cost?

I'm thinking of something along this line (4'x2'x6')...

This enclosure should be fine, personally I would prefer if the enclosure would be a little deeper/wider (3 ft instead of 2 ft) to give the snake more room to keep it’s distance to you and feel more secure, but the size should be OK.

Originally Posted by jjhill001

Really pretty enclosures Roman, I've yet to delve into the Asian rat snakes yet so I'll take your word for it on this particular species irascibility.

Did you get yours as babies? Did you make any concerted effort to tame them up?

I got my snakes as semi adults, they were about two years old when I got them. Usually I don’t try to tame my snakes, with most of them it wouldn’t do any good to begin with. They get used to the daily routine maintenance work, mainly the daily spraying of water. Most of my arboreal snakes (not specifically Gonyosoma) calm down after some time and don’t flee or get defensive as soon as they see me. But trying to handle them on a regular basis would put them under stress, so I don’t do it.

Sometimes my Gonyosoma will use my arm as a climbing branch during the water spaying, as long as they don’t move to far from there I let them do it and move them carefully back into their enclosure when I am finished with spraying water. Occasionally I will get one snake out during feeding time when they start to work themselves up into a “feeding frenzy”, this snake will use my hand as a useful branch during eating.

So in other words, my snakes are used to my presence and are usually calm, but sometimes you get a nib anyway for no obvious reason.

Roman

[Scubadiver59]

Originally Posted by Roman

This enclosure should be fine, personally I would prefer if the enclosure would be a little deeper/wider (3 ft instead of 2 ft) to give the snake more room to keep it’s distance to you and feel more secure, but the size should be OK.

I can make changes to the case, and 3' vice 2' would be doable.

Originally Posted by Roman

I got my snakes as semi adults, they were about two years old when I got them. Usually I don’t try to tame my snakes, with most of them it wouldn’t do any good to begin with. They get used to the daily routine maintenance work, mainly the daily spraying of water. Most of my arboreal snakes (not specifically Gonyosoma) calm down after some time and don’t flee or get defensive as soon as they see me. But trying to handle them on a regular basis would put them under stress, so I don’t do it.

My Taiwanese Beauty doesn't like the harder water spray setting I sometimes use, vice the misting setting on my bottle, and will try to take off outside the cage. I sometimes let it go and then collect the snake when I'm done. No bites yet due to that.

Originally Posted by Roman

Sometimes my Gonyosoma will use my arm as a climbing branch during the water spaying, as long as they don’t move to far from there I let them do it and move them carefully back into their enclosure when I am finished with spraying water. Occasionally I will get one snake out during feeding time when they start to work themselves up into a “feeding frenzy”, this snake will use my hand as a useful branch during eating.

So in other words, my snakes are used to my presence and are usually calm, but sometimes you get a nib anyway for no obvious reason.
Roman

The only snake I have that does this is my CA Striped King...it just sidles up when I'm cleaning, opens up its mouth, clamps down on the unsuspecting finger, lets go, and then moves on about its business. It's like, "this is my space, I'm in charge, and I can do what I want." The result is a few teeth marks, a bit of blood, and some cursing regarding the snake's ancestry.

[Roman]

Originally Posted by Scubadiver59

I can make changes to the case, and 3' vice 2' would be doable.

Do it, your snake will most likely be calmer in the wider enclosure.

Originally Posted by Scubadiver59

The only snake I have that does this is my CA Striped King...it just sidles up when I'm cleaning, opens up its mouth, clamps down on the unsuspecting finger, lets go, and then moves on about its business. It's like, "this is my space, I'm in charge, and I can do what I want." The result is a few teeth marks, a bit of blood, and some cursing regarding the snake's ancestry.

Lol, you made me nearly spill a perfect cup of coffee. That’s precisely what I do when the guys go after me again.


Roman

[Scubadiver59]

Well, you know what they say about the "best laid plans of mice and men" don't you?

Well, Muryphy's Law kicked in as well...

Here's the snake that was advertised on KingSnake.com:


And here's what I got:






Needless to say I'm a bit pissed about this transaction. The snake wasn't a lot, $250 w/shipping, but come on...this snake is not the snake advertised and it has some serious scale damage. Not major damage that's life threatening, but damage that will take a vet visit.

I contacted the seller, whom will remain anonymous for now, and said he had several options:
1. Send me my money back and send extra to pay for shipping the snake back...I'm not paying to send it back.
2. Send me the snake advertised, and again send money to cover shipping the "damaged" snake back. He pays for everything.
3. Negotiate with me to have me keep the snake, but it will still include refunding some of my original payment to cover vet bills.

Or, do nothing and I contact PayPal to get my money back, the Better Business Bureau, and who knows who else to complain about the transaction. Then comes dragging his name through the mud on every forum I can find that deals with reptiles.

I understand that the seller deals mainly with 'hots', but that's no excuse for sending an injured animal to someone and not identifying the injuries before the sale is complete. And before you ask, no, I didn't ask if the animal was injured, I shouldn't have to.

Well, I better get off to work. The snake is resting in a temp tub (110L Sterilite) for now. It has moss for humidity, water, a hide, and a pole to hang around on once it warms up after its journey.

[DJC Reptiles]

I hope you are able to reach an understanding with the seller. Best of luck

[kazz]

Originally Posted by Roman

I keep my Gonyosomas in an enclosure 120 x 80 x 150 cm (ca 4 x 3 x 5 ft). I would prefer to give them some more length, but this is what I have right now. It seems to be OK so far, the snakes prefer more vertical space than horizontal space.

As far as I know snake don't like 4 side from glass. 1 side glass makes them feel much more secure.

[Roman]

Originally Posted by kazz

As far as I know snake don't like 4 side from glass. 1 side glass makes them feel much more secure.

Thank you very much. I will tell them immediately that they should go hiding in their cork tub instead of resting in their favorite branches. I am sure they just didn’t know that they should feel insecure because they have unrestricted panorama view instead of a restricted perspective. The view from a treetop of a 30 m (100 ft) tree in Borneo is so restricted by other trees, the snakes would be confused or even frightened by the sight into my living room.

I always enjoy advice by new keepers who have their carpet python for less than 6 month, feed it fish and are wondering why a small, young snake stays in hiding most of the time. It’s so refreshing to get a new insight after keeping snakes for more than 30 years (and this particular species for more than 20 years – most of the time in this very enclosure).

For your continuing education, a full glass enclosure could be a problem if you have either a really young snake (which is very likely afraid of pretty much everything) reacting skittish, a snake new in this environment or probably in an environment with lots of movement all around the enclosure (like in a public place), so you can try to calm your snake by restricting the view on several sides of the enclosure until it acclimatized enough to stay calm. I keep my current trio in this enclosure since 2013 and they will watch me as calmly as I watch them, so I can assure you that for them this panoramic view is not a problem.

Roman

[kazz]

Thank you very much. I will tell them immediately that they should go hiding in their cork tub instead of resting in their favorite branches.

one side glass rule is definitely work for green pythons. There is a video about it from Discovery Snake channel on youtube.

I always enjoy advice by new keepers who have their carpet python for less than 6 month, feed it fish and are wondering why a small, young snake stays in hiding most of the time. It’s so refreshing to get a new insight after keeping snakes for more than 30 years (and this particular species for more than 20 years – most of the time in this very enclosure).

oh it's great you look my threads and try to insult me.
I understand bc I was insulting you above (wasn't)

[Roman]

Originally Posted by kazz

one side glass rule is definitely work for green pythons. There is a video about it from Discovery Snake channel on youtube.

oh it's great you look my threads and try to insult me.
I understand bc I was insulting you above (wasn't)

Oh and we all know that everything on youtube is always the absolute truth - or isn’t it . I don’t know about green tree pythons, but a friend of mine kept emerald tree boas in a three sided glass enclosure.

I think you misunderstood me, I didn’t want to insult you (I would use another kind of language to do this), it is called "sarcasm". I still think it is rather funny if you try to consult somebody about his enclosure if you are struggling with your very first setup yourself. If you read my posts in this thread you would have noticed that I keep my trio of Gonyosoma since 2013, so I would probably already have noticed if my snakes were nervous.

As for reading your posts, if somebody disagrees on something I wrote and I haven’t discussed with him/her before, I read some posts of him/her to get a feeling about the knowledge level of this user, so I can evaluate the reasoning and the relevance of his information. I don’t follow you in particular.

Roman

[kazz]

I still think it is rather funny if you try to consult somebody about his enclosure if you are struggling with your very first setup yourself. If you read my posts in this thread you would have noticed that I keep my trio of Gonyosoma since 2013, so I would probably already have noticed if my snakes were nervous.

I wasn't consult you. And I don't keep to assure you about your enclosure. Actually I correct myself above telling it work with green pythons.

Oh and we all know that everything on youtube is always the absolute truth

Snake Discovery it's a channel from ppl who has dozens of snakes and breed them.

And your sarcasm about your enclosure isn't insult. Insult it's your sarcasm about my threads.

[Scubadiver59]

Hey guys, take the conversation offline and quit hijacking this thread w/petty squabbles!

Thanks!

[Roman]

Originally Posted by Scubadiver59

Hey guys, take the conversation offline and quit hijacking this thread w/petty squabbles!

Thanks!

Sorry about that, it just … annoys me if somebody inserts himself into a discussion with something you can only charitably call "half knowledge"…

But back on topic. Do you know if the snake is WC? This might explain the skin damage.

When you are back at home, please spray some hand warm water directly on the snake and if it starts to drink keep on spraying as long as it is drinking, don’t worry if the enclosure gets a little wet, my snakes spend days in their drinking bowl, so it should not really matter if it gets a little wet.



Gonyosomas are not used to drink out of water bowls, my snakes are CB and even they didn’t use their water bowl once during the first 6 month in their enclosure, so your snake might be at least thirsty or even more likely in the first stage of dehydration but it will not drink from the water bowl, it will only drink fresh water droplets "raining" on it (which makes sense when most stagnant water you might find anywhere in the tropics carries very likely a high load of bacteria and any number of other parasites).

From the look of your pictures it might be in shed, the green is very pale so it seems that the lymph fluid is still between the old and the new skin, so drinking might be even more important right now.

Roman

[Scubadiver59]

I'll do the spraying this morning after the lights come up. I've been meaning to get a couple of the wash bottles with the long tubes, like Al (Viperkeeper) uses for his snakes. Looks like I'll have to order one or two today.

The snake spent most of yesterday sitting on the 2qt bowl of sphagnum moss I put in its tub to keep the humidity up and it does have a bowl of water sitting right next to the sphagnum. Before that, it was in the hot hide--well, the only hide--probably warming up after its long trip from Florida.

And yes, it is in shed, so I don't know how much of those damaged areas will be repaired. I'm out of Neosporin, at least any that hasn't already expired, so I'll get some today and be ready to apply after the shed.

And as far as it being wild caught, that's a question the seller will have to answer. He said he had it at least six months so I'll wager that it probably was, but I'll send him an e-mail after I post this. It was a bit cold when I got the snake out of the box--it was wrapped tightly around a ball of newspaper--even though there was a warmer pack in the Styrofoam box, but that was outside the bag the snake was in. Anyway, the snake was rather docile at first, climbing up my arm and shoulder, but after I put it in the tub, it went to the corner by the water and then puffed up its neck and started that "lazy", slow, blue tongue flick that to me said, "hands off bud!" Needless to say, I heeded the warning.

Originally Posted by Roman

Sorry about that, it just … annoys me if somebody inserts himself into a discussion with something you can only charitably call "half knowledge"…

But back on topic. Do you know if the snake is WC? This might explain the skin damage.

When you are back at home, please spray some hand warm water directly on the snake and if it starts to drink keep on spraying as long as it is drinking, don’t worry if the enclosure gets a little wet, my snakes spend days in their drinking bowl, so it should not really matter if it gets a little wet.

Gonyosomas are not used to drink out of water bowls, my snakes are CB and even they didn’t use their water bowl once during the first 6 month in their enclosure, so your snake might be at least thirsty or even more likely in the first stage of dehydration but it will not drink from the water bowl, it will only drink fresh water droplets "raining" on it (which makes sense when most stagnant water you might find anywhere in the tropics carries very likely a high load of bacteria and any number of other parasites).

From the look of your pictures it might be in shed, the green is very pale so it seems that the lymph fluid is still between the old and the new skin, so drinking might be even more important right now.

Roman