Growth - Kenyan Sand Boa

Adult Male Normal Sand Boa, approx 16in long, About 5 years old

When I really noticed he was getting bigger, yes he was tiny when I got him.

Back when I first got him (2009), same hand

This is Baby (I was lazy about naming pets for a while.) I remember initially he was a nightmare to feed (had no interest what so ever), but once I got him to eat he quickly endeared himself. He's pretty, very docile, and stays quite small. Except for that need of higher temps (90-95° hot spot) then some other beginner snakes I think he would make a great starter snake. The real bonus is the size though. He's about 5 years old now, and seems to have stopped growing. He lives in a small low exo-terra tank, and he should be able to live in that for the rest of his life (min. another 10 years).

New year, New pets

So to celebrate getting a new full-time job, and having excess Christmas money hanging around I went to a reptile expo. I was also celebrating entering the final weeks of my retail job and having weekends back. I had a few interests, but with this being winter it was slim pickings for captive bred juvie snakes, they're much more common in late spring to mid-summer depending on species. I did pick up the two above Kenyan sand boas, hopefully females, one is a lighter yellow and the other is the traditional pinkish orange. I did have a few chances at adult snakes, but they were all too squirmy for me. I already have a boa and he is the most laid back of the snakes. The ones up for sale were all freaked out and thrashing, and having tried that exactly once I won't buy a very thrashy non juvenile snake. (I bought a sinaloan milk snake who thrashed so badly I thought he would injure himself, and after a few months I rehomed him because I couldn't get him to calm down at all.) Once a few years old a snake should be much more handle able if it's a species known for it. The two I picked were both much calmer, and after having them for a week both have also eaten. I also tried for females because they get bigger then the males, and I already have a male (judging by how he stopped growing at about 15 inches a few years ago). While I have no plans to bred them you never know. The real goal is a little silly. I have three large snakes, they all eat the same food, so the food can be bought in large quantities but eaten fast enough it doesn't get freezer burn. The sand boa eats much smaller food, that tends to get freezer burn since I have to buy it in even larger quantities, and only have one snake that eats it (the frog gets one about once a month, and the bigger snakes sometimes get one, but one snake takes a long time to go through a bag of a hundred fuzzies.) So I either wanted a baby corn who would eat fuzzies at a very good clip for a while, or something else that stayed smaller. The new boas are eating pinks, but will move up to fuzzies eventually, then I'll stop having the freezer burn problem.

I also took a chance on some fire belly toad tadpoles. I had an empty cycled fish tank, so they went in there. As of three weeks in, all but one have disappeared, but the one I have left is huge. Maybe I'll get an adult out of it eventually.

I have plans to rework the reptile room in the near future, probably moving the three larger snakes out into a cage stack in my bedroom and reorganize the smaller bedroom. I have to decide if the crested geckos will stay in their extremely inconvenient tanks, get moved to bins, or if I try to build them something custom. In the last few months i did pick up two exo-terra terrariums and love the front opening doors. They were short ones so the leopard gecko and the sand boa each got a new easy to access home. Two of the big snakes are still in tanks, and the corn has really outgrown it, while the ball could get away with the tank size I can't deal with how much of a pain it is to open or clean the tanks. Once it warms up I'm building shelving racks to deal with the cages, and to hopefully set up two fish tanks in my living room, once the snake gets out of one of the tanks. The fish I've hung onto for years have gotten new accommodations and live in a new tank in the kitchen. I'm also considering garter snakes Red-Sided - Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis can be convinced to eat rodents, or some other interesting looking different species in the future as well, depends on how my house rearranging goes.

Getting Bigger

My kenyan sand boa is just hitting 12" long. I just dug around but didn't find any great size comparison pics for this guy. I either took pics of him sitting on a hand or on a bland white background. He doesn't like being out in the open and starts panicking if he can't feel structure around his body. That would be why even after 2 years I'm still hand feeding him. I can't put him in a separate container to feed as he ignores the food in favor of trying to escape. In his cage he can drag the food into his sand which I don't want him eating. He loves burrowing so i don't want to put him on a packed substrate, so wrapping him around my fingers and steering him toward food is the current way. At least he is a very calm snake and takes handling quite well.

Sand Boa equals Pet Rock

last week I scrubbed critter cages and did some shuffling. The Kenyan sand boa got some new sand and some slightly shuffled rocks. I liken this snake to owning a pet rock. Any time I look into the cage I might spot a tiny little bump in the sand barely 1/4" long. That would be his nose. He stays buried 95% of the time. I even have to dig him out to feed him. He's only a foot long and about 2/3rd adult size if he is a male. Females might hit two feet. He's clumsy and nervous out of his cage and makes me wonder how his kin survive in the wild. He's totally a snake to get if you want a snake who stays small is laid back and survives well in captivity. He's not a snake to get if you want an active showy pet. He does do a perfect rock impression however.

Reptile Room

The critters are just about all organized the way I want.  The corn snake cage now has heat installed, and the other cages are almost all off the floor. There is only one cage on the desk in there, and I'm done enough to start writing in that nice warm room. Of course I still have some goals in the room. The bigger ball python will eventually get a cage like the new corn snake one, and the smaller one will hopefully be re homed soon. She's back to a good weight and health from when I picked her up, so I'm happy to pass her on to a new owner. I have two crested geckos I will likely try to re home, an older male who hates handling and other geckos, and a young female that I ended up with hoping for a male who also isn't in to handling. I'm keeping cages to upgrade the few critters not quite big enough for their adult cages as well.

Finished Corn Snake Cage

The cage. It's mostly based on a plan I found here. I used melamine along with a piece of 1 x 4 and two conveniently sized door from ikea. I have the tracks for sliding doors, but since I don't have the money to go get some glass cut right now the ikea doors were a better alternative, and still give me very large openings to work with. I still have to add a heat lamp, though with the room temps this is less of a concern then one would expect. I had an idea for one already, but discovered it isn't going to work and have to try again. I may just cut a hole in the top, cover it with screen and put an outside lamp on it since I'm no longer planning to stack the cages, and that solution would be basically free. I also need to add a side vent, but the one I had was too large for the space, and had gaps just slightly too large as well. I expect I'm going to make it out of wire instead of using something pre-made.

In the spring I'm also going to have to haul the cage outside and silicone all the joints. The corn snake is dry enough I hope he won't do too much damage to the melamine before i seal the edges. That central piece of 1 x 4 also will be painted to protect it from damage as well. The edges aren't perfectly square, but if I build another I'm borrowing a circular saw. A jigsaw isn't great at cutting straight for long distances.

Mind you all the pieces of this cage have been hanging around in different rooms of my house for months. I finally cut the back Tuesday and that led to finishing it. The walls, top and bottom had been together for months sitting in my reptile room taking up space.

And here is the slightly annoyed inhabitant. I need to add more decor and such as this was just what was in his old cage. The footprint is 49 x 24 giving the corns snake about 8 sq ft of space, almost doubling the 4 1/2 sq ft he had previously. Since he's about 5 feet long now, I felt awful keeping him in a 3 foot wide by 18 inch tank. The next snake to be upgraded is my older ball python who is in the same size cage, and is approaching the same length.

Procrastination or Finishing a Snake Cage

Since I decided yesterday to maybe try doing NaNoWriMo i.e. writing about 50,000 words in one month, I suddenly managed to finish building my corn snake cage. The walls, top and bottom have been sitting in my spare bedroom for over a year and it all kind of hinged on getting the back cut. I finally cut it and the jigsaw didn't mess up too bad. I then stared at the open front for about an hour before deciding what to do. I had one perfect glass door from ikea sitting in the room and while I did have a second matching one it was on my TV stand. I dismantled that and had two matching doors. One is misaligned about 1/4" but I'll fix it in the spring, when I'll be taking the cage outside to silicone the joins and paint the few bare wood areas. Since the inhabitant is a corn snake I'm hoping the cage won't warp much before i can seal it. I also have to figure out how to wire a heat bulb in there sometime tomorrow. Something will have to be done about my TV stand as well.

Char the Corn Snake

Charcoal Corn Snake

In August of 2003 I was working at a chain pet store. I'd already brought home a few critters (leopard gecko and ball python about that time I think), but I really wanted a corn snake. One day a batch of hatchling corn snakes arrived. Half sold out that day to employees. I picked out a pretty gray one as I hadn't researched morphs at all and liked the colors, I got first pick as I was unloading the box. That gray corn snake baby grew up to be Char, my favorite snake. He or she (I'm not interested in breeding so never have the sex checked) is approaching 5 feet now and is on a bit of a diet as he is just too good about eating. This snake refused food exactly once. I dropped a defrosted mouse on his head and he went on strike for a week. He will be 8 years old this July (guessing based on date of arrival in store and standard hatch times) or so. I've had this snake longer then I've had my dogs. While I have five snakes there are only two I will never be re-homing. I like the other three, however if I had to give up some they would be going first as I am nowhere near as attached as I am with Char and Bruce (my first ball python).

Kenyan Sand Boas Rock

I really do feel these guys don't get enough credit as an excellent pet snake. Yes, they are largely invisible, but you really can't beat the temperament. Last week I went to feed him, and for the first time in the year I've owned him he tried to bite me. I took this a little hard, but he has tiny teeth, and I barely felt anything. This week when I went to feed I noticed he had shed stuck on his head. Whenever a snake has any stuck shed on their head there is a high likelihood of there also being retained eye caps. They can't see well through these caps and normally docile snakes begin striking out of fear.

I just spent ten minutes massaging water onto his head until the stuck shed peeled off. This snake which is the thickness of my thumb, and maybe 12" long didn't even flinch. It sat perfectly content to let me repeatedly pet its head with wet fingers. It did have eye caps and a piece of shed barely 1/2" long on the top of its head. I do handle this snake, but not that often, maybe once a week on average. It is a delightful snake, perfectly calm when removed from the cage, and small enough to handle with one hand. And that seems to be mostly just its own temperament.

It won't get too large, its heat can be provided by lamp or heat pad and it has an excellent temperament. They even come in a few different colors. I think some more people should give these guys a chance and give the ball pythons a break.

Daily Photo - Peaceable Kingdom

I declared Juicy out of quarantine 2 days ago. That meant I could move her tank upstairs to the nice warm rooms rather than the cooler living room. However I don't quite have a specific spot yet, so she's hanging out on my bedroom floor. I think my dog's might be getting too used to the other critters. Juicy is also in need of another bath as she shed for the second time in as many months on Monday, and I didn't catch it early enough to shift her onto coco fiber like I wanted, so she has some stuck shed again.

Daily Photo - Emerald Tree Boa

I'm still digging through my old animal photos looking for anything I can use for my revamped website. I came across this Emerald Tree Boa from the Roger Williams Park Zoo in RI. I promise if it isn't raining tomorrow I'm getting up at dawn and hiking. I finally found my long underwear so I can't use that as an excuse anymore. I may spend today revamping this site a bit though.

Daily Photo - Ball Python

My older snake Bruce, not the new one Juicy.

Daily Photo - Mutual Fascination

Apparently Abby just figured out there is a snake in that cage in my bedroom. The corn snake seemed equally interested.

Daily Photo - Sand Boa

Must Stop Missing Days... Kenyan Sand Boa after I dug him out of his bedding. It really is like owning an invisible pet. He only appears when food is waiting, otherwise I never see this guy. He is actually getting ready to shed, so should look even nicer in a few days. I dug him out to look for shed skin so I could decide if it was time to fee him or not.

Daily Photo - Corn Snake in Blue

More Juicy

Random Comparison Pic

This is Bruce in his 3 foot cage (he is getting a 4 foot one as soon as I finish it, his driftwood is also missing so the cage looks bare.) He is much thicker than Juicy.

Juicy

I did go outside yesterday, but that post will take a few more minutes.

This is Juicy. Today was my last day at a painful foray into pet shop working again. On Saturday someone dumped off their ball python, filthy cage and all. It got labeled as for adoption and the store turned on its heat, that's it. Three days later it was still in a filthy cage. I asked a manager right after I punched out what the adoption fee would be. (Mind you the store has done nothing for this snake.) A $5 donation later I have a new critter.

Juicy's old hide, which she didn't fit in and was on the cold side of the cage.

It didn't even look that bad from far away.

The person dumping it said she was named Juicy was 5 years old and he fed it one live mouse every two weeks. The cage had caked in feces and little bits of old shed skin on all the decor. (If he did feed the snake every two weeks, it would have pooped about every two weeks, so my guess is it's been at least 6 months since this cage was cleaned.) The only good thing was they did keep the cypress mulch bedding dry. If it had been damp this snake would likely have horrible infections. Today I even noticed they had repaired a decoration with duct tape. When I took it out I thought it was really skinny. The manager on duty didn't think so. I think they are too used to the skinny non-eating babies the store gets in. My mother, who's experience with snakes is limited to my one ball python, instantly commented it looked really skinny. When you pick it up you can feel a ridge along its backbone, were there should be more muscle. Juicy's new cage. Don't mind the oatmeal can hide. None of her old hides fit her at all so I had to improvise. I didn't have any extras for a snake this big. She came with a 30" tank and is easily 36" long. She'll be staying in my living room for at least the next 30 days. It doesn't look like she picked up anything too horrible from living in filth, but I want to be extra sure. All her decor will be bleached and kept as a backup until I think she's clean.

Daily Photo - Arrow

I again promise to go outside tomorrow...

Daily Photo - Ball Python