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.