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beetiger“Hey, Vicki, what ever happened to those cute baby snakes that were born last summer?”
Three of them figured out how to eat more or less right away, and are growing and happy and generally cute, though I’m off handling duty at this point because of Salmonella concerns. At some point I should probably work harder to figure out their sexes, but they're not breeding age yet and I’m housing them individually, so it’s not such a big deal.
Mole (like the Mexican chocolate-and-pepper sauce, not the blind burrower) was the first to start eating. Zie’s the biggest, and kind of aggressive, but really quite lovely. Cumin’s the shy one, most likely to be curled up tightly in zir box, and look startled when you bug zir. Ancho’s the mellow one. Zie doesn’t usually seem to mind being handled, and occasionally looks around more than the other too.
One disappeared early on after they were born, somehow managing to unlatch the cage. We imagine zie’s living in the walls somewhere, terrorizing the mice that occasionally come into our pantry, scaring them so that Omaha can scare them from the outside.
The other six have been stable but not well. They don’t seem to have figured out in all of these months how to strike at food or generally why rodent in the mouth is a good idea; we’ve had to shove mouse tails cut from the adult snakes’ food and long bits of cooked chicken down their throats, once or twice a week, all these months. They are alert, and metabolize and shed, but they really haven’t grown at all. They’re not named, except for "MIA" who disappeared for a few weeks early on but was discovered lounging in the bedroom toilet, and “the ratty one”, who looks, well, kind of ratty compared to the others.
Finally, someone who does reptile rescue and is I’m sure much better at these things than we are, has agreed to take them, and has lined up homes for several of them once they are well. Bard’s driving up to meet him in Ithaca this weekend, six little cages in hand. I said goodbye to them this morning, apologized for being less than competent, wished them the very best and asked them to keep in touch.
Of course, now it’s Spring again, and we’re still housing Choco and Chile together….
Three of them figured out how to eat more or less right away, and are growing and happy and generally cute, though I’m off handling duty at this point because of Salmonella concerns. At some point I should probably work harder to figure out their sexes, but they're not breeding age yet and I’m housing them individually, so it’s not such a big deal.
Mole (like the Mexican chocolate-and-pepper sauce, not the blind burrower) was the first to start eating. Zie’s the biggest, and kind of aggressive, but really quite lovely. Cumin’s the shy one, most likely to be curled up tightly in zir box, and look startled when you bug zir. Ancho’s the mellow one. Zie doesn’t usually seem to mind being handled, and occasionally looks around more than the other too.
One disappeared early on after they were born, somehow managing to unlatch the cage. We imagine zie’s living in the walls somewhere, terrorizing the mice that occasionally come into our pantry, scaring them so that Omaha can scare them from the outside.
The other six have been stable but not well. They don’t seem to have figured out in all of these months how to strike at food or generally why rodent in the mouth is a good idea; we’ve had to shove mouse tails cut from the adult snakes’ food and long bits of cooked chicken down their throats, once or twice a week, all these months. They are alert, and metabolize and shed, but they really haven’t grown at all. They’re not named, except for "MIA" who disappeared for a few weeks early on but was discovered lounging in the bedroom toilet, and “the ratty one”, who looks, well, kind of ratty compared to the others.
Finally, someone who does reptile rescue and is I’m sure much better at these things than we are, has agreed to take them, and has lined up homes for several of them once they are well. Bard’s driving up to meet him in Ithaca this weekend, six little cages in hand. I said goodbye to them this morning, apologized for being less than competent, wished them the very best and asked them to keep in touch.
Of course, now it’s Spring again, and we’re still housing Choco and Chile together….
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From:no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 10:36 am (UTC)A friend had me slithersit her baby redtail boas the first month of thier life. Her Dad was a little TOO enthusiastic about the new umm playtoys. I still wish I had a picture of me with about 8 babies in each hand, acting all minoan.
Okay, I feel better now. And here the fact that some of them didn't want or get the hand of eating was bothering me as something I did wrong. I thought about crickets, but considering they couldn't hit a much larger and relatively immobile fuzzy my confidence in switching food was low.
Daw, Choco and Chile make Mole. Dat is so KY00T!
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