Catching up

I have been busy and am a bit behind on posting about all the goings on!  So to look back a couple weeks... We drove over to Pahrump back on Aug 24th to pick up an unwanted ball python.  She is healthy, but underfed. I think she might be het for pied as she has some pretty strong markers.... so I have Cheerio hanging out with her.  She's not quite big enough to breed, but a few more meals and she will be. She and cheerio like each other and are happy to hang out together.

I also got a big batch of window screens on September 10th to make the big outside play area for the snakes. I have not had time to put it together yet, but hope to work on it this weekend!


Our corn snakes are doing well and eating like piggies. I  saw an ad on Craigslist of a kid that had his albino corn snake stolen from his backyard. I offered to give him one of these, but so far have not heard back.


I think that about covers it!!!   :)

New Corn Snakes

Meet the newest adoptees at Qwatra Rescue! Two sweet female corn snakes we picked up yesterday afternoon. One albino and one snow. They are probably sisters, approximately seven years old. Both are very small,  only 150 grams each. But both appear to be very healthy and eat like champs! They already had a mouse each, and both were snoozing under their box this afternoon. They should gain weight quickly, so check back soon to see their progress! :) 

Welcome to the Serpent Den!

I have decided to split my personality so to speak... My original blog will contain all the garden, homesteading, and sustainability stuff, plus occasional mentions of my critter corners which will be split off into 4 sub-blogs. Reptiles here, plus my other critters as soon as I can get those going -- someday soon I hope!  :)  So for those of you who follow my snake posts, here they are all together without the hike through my garden!!  ;)

Amina Exploring

Amina really enjoyed her time outside today. A little too much in fact! She made me feel

guilty that I have not been able to have her out more these past few months!  She spent her time crawling along the river rock path, looking into every nook and cranny. But when it came time to come inside, she threw a bit of a hissy-fit.   Literally!   First, when I reached for her, she turned and hissed at me. I paused for a bit, and then slowly continued my reach until I was touching her lower back. As soon as I touched her she pulled away and half-struck at me in the typical "don't touch me!" posture. I slowly picked her up to more hissy protest and started down the hill with her. When we passed a low tree branch, she reached for it and grabbed on and would not let go!

  *giggle* I could just hear her thinking "NOOOO!!!  I don't want to go inside!!! I wanna stay out here!!!"  I felt soooo bad bringing her back inside!  I want to make a big outdoor enclosure for the snakes so they can stay outside for longer periods of time; places to climb, hide, explore, water to cool off in, rocks to warm up on,... yes.... this will be accomplished very soon! :)

Mala lays eggs!

Just a quick post to announce Mala's first eggs! Mala is my prize bumblebee. She is full grown and still bright yellow with very little browning like so many bumblebees tend to do as they get older. The photo is more her true color, the video kinda makes everything look brownish.  This is her first clutch of eggs and she laid seven good eggs! Kye was the father, my mystic male. I can't wait to see the babies from this clutch! Will I get a mystic bee? Here's hoping!

Dragon Snake

What a cool little snake!  Discovered in 1846, (according to this link) Xenodermus javanicus, known as the Dragon Snake, or Javan Mudsnake, or Tubercle Snake lives in the jungles from Burma to Malaysia. Not much is known about this little snake and it is quite rare in captivity.  Here's what information I could find. Not a lot, but it's neat! :)

There's a map here: http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Xenodermus&species=javanicus
...A little bit of captive care information here:http://www.breeders-expo.de/species/Colubridae/Xenodermus-javanicus.html
Nice picture of an Albino here: http://snakebuddies.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/dragon-snake/
Cool set of pictures in the wild here: http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12451
More here: http://www.sareptiles.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24966
and here: http://www.naturemalaysia.com/dragon-snake.htm