A Rainbow Addition - Page 8

Lefitte · 06-03-16, 05:12 PM

Nope, this one is it. I can only use my own room or the dining room and the dining room is only a few feet from the oven so every night in the summer it gets very warm in there. My room also has a thermal curtain which helps keep the heat out. He's on an internal wall and there's a fan blowing cool air from the vent towards his cage. It's 100 today and with the a/c and curtain, my room near his tank is only 80! I still worry since I haven't actually kept that close of an eye on temps before I got him. As long as the a/c doesn't break down [it broke two days before he shipped and was maintenanced then so it shouldn't. I do worry about what happens if my a/c breaks and I'm not home though. My mom doesn't touch them but she might be able to put his cool pool in if it isn't in his cage already. I cross my fingers XD Otherwise I might have to rush home from work to do it and risk getting into trouble at work to make sure he's cool. It'd be worth it.

Snakesitter · 06-07-16, 06:26 PM

May your A/C never have issues!

Lefitte · 06-07-16, 11:17 PM

Yes! I hope to never have issues! Thankfully, we rarely get rolling block outs here in my city as well. My plan for keeping him cool in an emergency where his cool pool with ice pack won't do involves a styrofoam cooler, icepack, pillow case, and some sort of shelf or something. I don't have that perfectly hashed out. If THAT doesn't work, off to the store we go. I don't worry so much about the girls because they're both desert species. I also hate leaving my house in situations like that because I leave my cats behind and if they suffer, I suffer, but if it's to help another pet, I will.

Got some fun updates.
First, comparison photo!
August 2015 vs June 2016 and about 100g difference between them.

And I redid his cage. I added Reptibark which I've never tried before. We'll see how that goes.

Snakesitter · 06-10-16, 02:13 PM

Good progress -- congrats! He has a nice home...better than my apartment, in fact!

bigsnakegirl785 · 06-11-16, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakesitter

Good progress -- congrats! He has a nice home...better than my apartment, in fact!

lol Yeah apts aren't very fun. If you get a decent-sized one it's not so bad but you're not able to do much modification at all.

Nice growth Lefitte! When I've had Homura long enough for her to show some size I should do a comparison with her. Unfortunately, due to his feeding habits, Morzan isn't going to get any bigger any time soon. Hasn't gained or lost a single gram since I got him in March. I should also do a comparison of some of the other babies...they've grown so much in such a short amount of time.

Snakesitter · 06-14-16, 02:04 PM

Have you tried mice? Sometimes they just prefer those, and at that age...whatever gets them to eat.

bigsnakegirl785 · 06-14-16, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakesitter

Have you tried mice? Sometimes they just prefer those, and at that age...whatever gets them to eat.

If you're talking about me, he's the one with the regurge issues, he's not even big enough for mouse hoppers yet. He's probably going to be on fuzzies for a long time. I tried to step him up, but even a large fuzzy is too much for him, gotta stick to the small and mid-sized fuzzies. He'd never get a rat pink down, they're even bigger than hoppers! So mice for sure.

Lefitte · 06-15-16, 12:47 AM

Thanks! His cage is my favorite of the three I have, but the hardest to care for. I know all about tiny spaces. I live in a mobile home and my room is shared with my niece's things. I think my room is something like 12x12? And I have a small corner in the living room with a shelving unit on it. So most of my personal space is taken over by snakes. Thankfully, cages can be stacked haha.

I love comparison photos! It's where you really get to see their growth since it's hard to tell when you see them all the time. I made an image of my kingsnake's growth and that is massively crazy to look at. Since these are my first snakes, I haven't had the chance to watch any snake grow up and it's been a blast watching them change.

Silly little Morzan, he'll catch up eventually. Watch, just for all this trouble he'll end up a huge male one day.

Xango is currently needing to shed. I need to check if he did while I was at LLL Reptile earlier. Last night I checked on him and he had a funny looking wrinkle and bubble on his head. I did the only thing that you can do in that situation and poked it. Such a strange feeling. Touched down his sides and it felt like the skin was about to slough off just with my touch. Strangest thing, but exactly what you'd expect from a snake who has cleared up and is about to shed. He's got a wealth of humidity, he just needs to finally do the deed. C'mon man.

In other news, I've decided that one day I would like to try breeding BRBs. This shouldn't be very surprising since I've been thinking that the next snake I get might as well be another BRB since I love him so very much. Going in to snake ownership, he is pretty much the thing I wanted from the start. Personality-wise, temperment-wise, and movement-wise. He's a fairly slow mover and he HANGS ON. Thank you for actually hanging on. I swear I'm going to drop my king snake every time she moves. So, I figured that I might as well get a complementary girl while I'm at it so that I can make the choice to breed once both are large, healthy, and old enough to do so. So I've got about 4 years to learn all I can before I can possibly breed them. I hope to have my girl early next year though. As a Xmas present would be awesome. We'll see. She's not even born yet. She'll be moving into his current tank with some new supplies since he'll be keeping most of what he's got now minus the baby hides.

Snakesitter · 06-15-16, 02:09 PM

Regurg issues trump everything else, so smaller meals are understandable. My point, however, was the reluctant feeders can often be coaxed to eat by offering mice rather than rats. It's like offering stubborn kids (healthy) candy. ;-)

Lefitte · 06-23-16, 03:15 AM

Happy first birthday to Xango! The 19th marked his first birthday! I had to work so I didn't have much time to post or do anything special but I did make time to give him a little swim after work. It's been 110+ all week which means that my house is staying 79-84 but most commonly at 81ish. That's a little warm. Not dangerously warm but that's more like what the warm side should be for him which doesn't give him much of a chance to cool off. I've changed things up, got a new fan to sit and blow cool air along the side of his cage and on me at the same time which should help. I've also made room for his pool in his cage. I might just end up taking out his water dish for a while and use his pool for that too. The pool has an ice pack underneath which keeps the temps in the high 60s - low 70s for a while. I need to do more testing with an aquarium thermometer instead of my laser to get more accurate temps on that but at least it provides him somewhere cool. He was exploring his cage nearly all night last night and I was afraid he was looking for a cool spot.

Last night in his cage. It seems he enjoys smelling the air through the little air holes. I had just had the cage open to mist so it couldn't have been him not getting enough air or something. I honestly think he enjoys torturing the cats. They paw at him and he just stars at them... for 15 minutes straight... while I try to sleep.

I also got a video of him in his pool on his birthday!
To the Youtube!

But the biggest update is actually with my mom. I mentioned that I'm really worried about what happens if something goes wrong and he needs in the emergency cooling ice chest and I'm not home to do it. Like if our a/c blows or a rolling black out hits. My plan in in a pillow case with an icepack but not touching the ice pack in an otherwise empty styrofoam ice chest. It's something I need to test but it should be able to keep him cool in an emergency. Now my sister is happy to handle him but my mom isn't, sister isn't home during the hottest part of the day. I mentioned this to my mom and she has decided, on her own, to start getting used to handling them, especially him. Today she pet my hognose several times and even let her wrap her tail around her hand. That was the 3-4th time in two years of owning snakes that she's touched one. She really cares about them and likes them and really enjoys watching Hoggle crawl around every morning [purposely moves anything in her way so that she can] but touching them is a barrier she's not quite comfortable with. So I guess I get to teach her how to pick up Xango. Should be easy. He's totally fine with it and tends to pretend he's a ball python for several minutes before exploring. But I'm really proud of her, I never expected that from her so my alternative was 'well, I guess I'll have to rush home from work to do it because otherwise he will die'. She's also staked the line at handling Eir, my king, and I don't blame her at all however she's happy to throw a covered ice pack in there to give her a cool place and point fans on her cage if it gets too hot like it did last year. The a/c actually blew two days before Xango shipped so we've already been through that with her.

Snakesitter · 06-24-16, 01:59 PM

Huge congrats on the parent breakthrough!!!

Lefitte · 09-20-16, 10:07 PM

Been a long time since I updated, hasn't it?
My boy just hit 15 months. I weighed him a couple weeks ago and he was 189g. He's getting 15-18g mice, depending on whatever size is in the package I get since they vary, every 10-14 days.

Rainy day for a rainboa.

Climbing.

And a comparison pic! A little over a year between these. I can't believe he was so little haha. Also, my mom pet him quite a bit today. She's trying to at least get more used to him in case she needs to cool him down while I'm not home.

He's also officially nipped me twice, the brat. It only happens when I'm trying to measure him. I'm starting to wonder if he doesn't like the measuring tape much haha. Last time I checked, he was just under 3ft.

**Minkness** · 09-20-16, 10:15 PM

Hey! I was just wondering about you the other day! Glad tobsee all seems well. And your boy lokks amazing! Wow is he coloring up beautifully! =D

Lefitte · 09-20-16, 10:24 PM

Hey! I keep seeing you sign on and off skype and thinking I should message you soon but I'm always busy at the time and then forget haha. All is well!
He had me pretty curious about what he was doing with his color before this last shed because the previous one turned out a bit darker than he usually is. It's not really as obvious in pictures as it was in person but he wasn't 'wow'ing me quite as much as he used to. Then he shed and as like 'lol mom jk'.
Kinda dark here;

**Minkness** · 09-20-16, 10:33 PM

Yeah, not sure what is going on with my skype lately =/ I may have to uninstall and reinstall. I never see you on though!

And hey, soon you won't have to worry about keeping him cool!

Ibkind of like that dark phase, but man ue really pops now! He may just flop between light and dark like other boas? Not sure if BRBs do that too, but my hypo will be a rich creamy then the next day a kind od ugly, muddy color lol.