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

Update on Loki

I am happy to report that Loki's health has greatly improved. :) Unfortunately, her attitude has not :( She still hates to be held and hisses at even the slightest touch on her body. She tollerates being petted now, but hisses and squeaks the whole time. It's been a great way for me to monitor her respiratory infection without disturbing her too much. I just listen to how raspy her hiss sounds. The real test came at feeding time. I gave her a 2 pound f/t bunny last night. At first she didn't recognize it as food. She literally laid on top of it for an hour without even looking at it. So plan B- I fished it out and warmed the belly by the heater for a bit, and then dangled the front end of the bunny over the door and gave it a shake or two. She came up and looked at it and thumped it and held on kinda like she was tasting it. I gave it another shake to convince her and she took it. She then proceeded to eat it from the wrong end. It took her forever to get her mouth around the butt and back legs! I dare say it's been quite a while since she has been fed something that was the appropriate size! lol I was planning on giving her antibiotics at the advice of a friend, but now I don't think I'll need to. As she ate, I listened for her to gasp and strain like she did at her last meal of 3 rats (which was all I had at the time). This was a full size meal and she ate it without a single gasp, whistle, or raspy breath. Her breathing was smooth and even. I was thrilled. :)
Now... maybe since she has a full belly she won't be quite so grouchy! :) I'll give her a couple of days alone to digest this bunny and then we will see how she feels. Personally I think she just needs a boyfriend! I'll report more later... I should film our social session!
Here's the video of her eating her bunny, butt-end first. (Silly snake! try from the nose next time! It'll be much easier!) It took her so long to get the rear in her mouth I was worried that she would get tired and spit it out and give up. (I've seen that happen) But she kept at it. Once she got her mouth around it, it went quick and I missed most of her swallowing it as I had gone upstairs to eat a snack myself.

Snake Beeding Season! YAY!

We're off to a great start this year! Our star boy, Kye, a Mystic male has already bred 3 girls- Mala, a bumblebee; Vanya, a Mojave; and Bambi, a spider.





Also we have Pete, a cinny pewter, who has bred with Bana, our other bumblebee; >

and Spot is breeding with Fern (below) - this is our het pied pair!



So we could possibly have any of the following:
mystics, mystic potions, cinnabee, bumblebee, mystic bee(?!),... and pieds! :)

Loki the Burmese Python

Well I have acquired a snake I'm going to call a rescue. She is a 7 foot Burmese Python with a bad attitude. I've had her for about a week and a half. When I first got her home, she did not want to be held or even touched. After working with her over the past few days, she has calmed down quite a lot and will already let me hold her. We still have a long way to go though, because she is used to getting her way, and when she wants down, she won't take no for an answer! Suddenly a 20 pound snake feels like she weighs 40 pounds! She is still hissy and fussy, but I think a lot of that noise may be due to her stuffy nose. Poor thing has a respiratory infection- no wonder she's so cranky! I'm keeping her kennel (more on that in a second) right in front of the heater, so she can crawl to the front and get really warm. I hope she will start feeling better soon.
So I brought her home immediately when I met her, leaving her cage behind to fetch at a later date. I put her in a large dog airline crate which she took to like a fish to water. She hid in the far corner and stayed there for several days. Then she moved up into her water tub and stayed there for another few days until she shed. After shedding she felt much better and came to the front of the kennel to greet me when I came int the snake room.
We then took her crate and all upstairs to the bathroom for a nice warm bath. She happily got into the warm water and then refused to come out! Determined not to handle her roughly, I suffered a lesson in patience and persistence to coax her back into her kennel. As soon as her nose was in the door she went straight to the back and coiled up again. So much for a first outing!
We repeated this process the last couple of days, and today she was quite social. She came out of her kennel on her own when I opened the door, and she let me carry her up the stairs to the living room. She sat with me on the couch for about an hour, and then we went to the bathroom to the tub for dinner where she ate 2 big rats quick as a wink.
So I started running some warm water into the tub for her to sit for a bit and get out of "hunt" mode, but she suddenly struck the water coming out of the faucet banging her nose hard on the metal. I felt so bad! I reached for her to pull her away so she would not hit her nose again, but as I started to tug her, the brat bit me! Then, thinking my arm must be a nice big bunny, she spun around my arm. The bite didn't hurt a bit. Her wrapping tight around my arm didn't hurt a bit. But her teeth pulling on my hand hurt like Hell!!! I wish I had gotten a picture of her twisted around my arm, but I was kinda focused on getting her OFF! First I poked her tail, but that made her spin tighter and her teeth pulled even more. OUCH!!! So I held as still as I possibly could until she started loosening up a little. Then I poked her belly under a coil on my arm. She loosened up a bit and I poked her again and she unwound and let go. I did get a nice picture of the bite, look at all those teeth!


Sadly, I know I won't be able to keep her. (Mom, I know this is good news to you ;) )
I just can't invest so much space to just one snake. I would love to breed half dwarf Burmese. Their size is much more manageable and much better pet quality. I will be keeping Loki long enough to get her sociable, and to get her respiratory infection all better. But then I think I will try to find her a home with one of my breeder friends.

Lory laid 7 eggs!

This was a few days ago on the 6th. So they should hatch between... Aug 30 to Sept 3 or so. I can't wait! Pete was the father, so babies could be Pastel, Cinnamon, or maybe pewter like daddy if I'm really lucky! Or who knows? Maybe they are both het for something... there's always a chance.

Tumors in African Soft Furred Rats

I have been breeding African soft furred rats for a couple years now. I find them to be less smelly than Norway rats, and they are prolific breeders....
However, in addition to being nasty biters (ouch) they are prone to developing nasty rapid growing tumors. Within a week an affected rat can go from having rough-looking fur (tumors developing underneath) or a sore on the eye, ear, or under the jaw; to numerous bumpy, sometimes bleeding, lumps all over their body. I did a bit of research and found a bit more info on this problem:
http://www.metalmonkeyexotics.com/blog/?page_id=333

"Tumors

"ASF's are prone to spontaneous, fast growing warty tumors. From my readings in various papers, the warty and ulcer like tumors known as keratoacanthomas and squamous carcinomas, are associated with a papillomavirus (MnPV). The tumors can be seen in the vaginal region as a clustered mass, along the tail as bumps, on the back and hind quarters as warty black growths, or on the face of the animal. (Pictures can be found here)

"They will develop warty tumors, patchy hairloss, and osteoarthritis as they age past approx 9 months, although it can be younger, or delayed as much as 14 months, or not at all.

"So far, it would seem that the tumors develop after 9 -12months of age, although not all will get this condition.I have at least one Amber colored female well over 14 months of age that still has not developed any skin tumors or growths.

"The tumor development can be very fast and spontaneous. I've had one female just recently (6/1) who within days developed fast growing tumors all over her body, under the skin and on the skin surface. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't remember to before she was euthanized and destroyed. It was disturbing to see the alarming rate that the tumors grew, she had just reached approximately 8-9 months of age when these tumors developed."

Though I try to cull affected animals as soon as I notice them, I haven't been able to make a noticeable improvement since I have a colony-style environment. I am seriously thinking about trying to do some strict selective breeding to see if this problem could be at least reduced or delayed if not irradiated (I could work on the aggressiveness and biting too) .
Also, ... is there something in captivity that is causing this? Are they missing something in their diet? Do they need a different bedding? Do they need some light exposure?
I need to do more research. ....

Pete and Jewel

Pete is a busy boy! Jewel is just over 1300g. She's small yet, but maybe we'll get 3 or 4 eggs from her this year. Hopefully she'll eat a few more times and get her weight up. She's an African import, so who knows? She might throw something new :)

A Good Lock!

This is Pete and Tika! Tika has some insanely bright yellow on her lower half; it will be interesting to see if pastel babies will pick up some of this yellow. Other than that I suppose she is a normal. Pete is a pewter, so I could have baby pastels, cinnies, or maybe a pewter if I'm really lucky! I can't wait!! :)

Since I had the camera, I filmed the rats munching their veggies. Aren't they cute?

Even More Snakes!

We got another Craigslist adult female dry shed tank included snake. lol Same story, different day. We named this one Lory. So now we have 3 adult females. YAY! :)
This is Lory in her new home:













I also got more mail-order snakes! I have a pair of Mojaves, a yellowbelly male, a pair of het Axanthic males ... well, two,... not a pair and a trio of Bumblebees!!! *buzzing noise* I need to get pictures of everybody! EEK!! *happy dance*

More Snakes!

My new snakes arrived today via mail. You can mail snakes? wow!
I was really scared - totally on pins and needles the whole time. But they are alive and kicking and seem to be just fine. I got a pair of ball pythons, a male pastel and a female spider- wow is she neat looking! I also got a pair of Brazilian Rainbow Boas- These snakes are spectacular! Here's pictures:

Second Snake!

We got another snake a few days ago. Almost the same situation as our first- adult female, tank and heat lamp included. She was covered in dry, pealing shed. She has a tight cross mark on her right eye from eye cap retention; I hope she is not permanently blind. :(
I sat down with a warm wet towel and rubbed off all the dry shed and I think I got off all the old eye scales. Her eye... not sure how well she can see, it is definitely dented. Maybe time and a few good sheds will heal it.
We've named her Rahja and our other female Tika. We took them both outside today and let them play in the grass. They loved it! I don't think either one of them had ever been able to do that before. Neither of them wanted to go back inside. We'll have to bring them out whenever we can on nice warm days! :)

First Snake!

I've been looking through Craigslist and today found my first ball python! It's an adult female. She's in decent shape except for a stack of eye caps from bad, dry sheds. She came with her 40 gal tank and heat lamp, so I'm all set! I have my first snake! :)
Here's a picture of her on black velvet: