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I got a month-old ball python about three weeks ago, and for the first two weeks feeding was no problem, but now he staunchly refuses to take his weekly meal of pre-killed mice. Am I feeding him too frequently and he just needs some time off, or could there be some other issue at work? I heard ball pythons could be problem feeders but everything went so smoothly the first two weeks...
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Sep 14, 2012 16:55
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I had the same issue with my Ball Python when I first got him. I cut back his feedings to once a month, since he wouldn't eat any more often. Snakes can go over a month without eating so it won't hurt him. After about 6-8 months my ball finally started eating on a bi-weekly basis. Some snakes just won't eat every week!
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Sep 14, 2012 18:07
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McSpanky posted:I got a month-old ball python about three weeks ago, and for the first two weeks feeding was no problem, but now he staunchly refuses to take his weekly meal of pre-killed mice. Am I feeding him too frequently and he just needs some time off, or could there be some other issue at work? I heard ball pythons could be problem feeders but everything went so smoothly the first two weeks... What are his temps? Ball pythons will go off food regularly due to temperature fluctuations.
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Sep 14, 2012 18:22
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Desert Bus posted:Anybody here keep Tentacle Snakes, Erpeton tentaculatum? I just discovered they existed today, and think they're kind of neat. We've got 3 at the zoo. Next time I'm helping out, I'll ask their keeper more about the set up. They've got a fliteration system, and we never really need to do much besides throw fish in, and remove dead fish. Pretty lazy guys honestly.
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Sep 14, 2012 18:43
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Fully aquatic, allow themselves to grow algae to protect from fungus, the neat tentacles, and mostly their feeding mechanism is really neat. They hang around motionless until a fish drops by, and then move part of their body to convince the fish to swim in the wrong direction and straight to their mouth.
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Sep 14, 2012 19:26
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So okay. After a couple sheds and some tlc the rescued leopard gecko,Asha, has perked up quite a bit and has fully regained her vision and in a few days when the acrylic sealer has had time to air out, the stuff is ready for her tank!  I tried to mimic the look of slate tile in the painting and it came out pretty close I think. And as for the other project. The background got painted today. I just have to seal it now.  Doing all this I've learned a few things. First everything I read said to use unsanded grout...That is only sorta right. The first couple layers when you're trying to seal off the Styrofoam is definitely easier with unsanded. But the later layers, sanded is so much nicer. It gets much harder and adds a nice amount of texture that you can't mimic by just sprinkling sand into your final layer of sealer. But you don't have to buy both. The leopard stuff used sanded grout I had lying around,but it wasn't enough for the background. So I made my own by adding cococoir and play sand to the mix. The next thing I learned is that Mod Podge are a bunch of god drat liars. I was checking for a water based acrylic sealer that I could pick up easy. Mod Podge was it. Their web site even said you could use it on Styrofoam. Well, I tried to seal the back of my background that I didn't grout at all and it started melting. So I went back and put a really really thin layer on the back to protect it and then resealed it. Thirdly, I bought a red light bulb for the leopard and holy crap is it a lot brighter than the moonlight bulbs I have for my Garg's and Frog's tank. I wish the moonlight were brighter cuz I like the light color better, but I guess I'll be buying a couple more red bulbs.
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Sep 16, 2012 02:59
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I just ground tarantula poop into an open wound by accident. I'm probably going to die. (got some African giant millipedes and D. diadema coming in tues)
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Sep 17, 2012 03:41
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Ship the giant millipedes to me before you die, tia But seriously, if you have babies later, I would buy some.
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Sep 17, 2012 05:18
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Pardalis posted:Ship the giant millipedes to me before you die, tia They're babies themselves, so it'll be a few years. I had a few like 10 years ago, but they didn't live long... should be better luck this time hopefully.
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Sep 17, 2012 05:29
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Big Centipede posted:I just ground tarantula poop into an open wound by accident. I'm probably going to die. That can't be entirely healthy. Dare I ask how you managed that? We had a giant centipede on our back porch last week, maybe 5 inches long. I believe the heavy rains drove him to seek asylum. We also had what I believe was some kind of crab spider -- quite unlike any other spider I've seen. Whitish-grey, 4 inch leg span. Really long front legs and much shorter back legs. Or perhaps he was just a battle-wounded one. It was pretty skittish, scurrying back off the deck before I could get a photo. I'll try for a better shot next rainfall. As some here already know, I had a chance meeting with a pretty tiger lady on a dangerously busy street this past week. It's a residential area where flattened diamondbacks and crushed gopher snakes can be found on pretty much any given night. Not a great area to be a herp. I was making an impromptu U-Turn to double-back for a night snake in the road, when my headlights caught these dark bands mid-turn.  Fortunately she performed exactly as hoped when offered the dark secure cave of a snake bag. Darted right in for cover with a nudge from the hook. Peek-a-boo:  She will hopefully pair up nicely with my blue male in time. But not this year.  Looking pretty girthy at the tail end, isn't she? We may have quite a surprise in the next few days. Or perhaps any minute. An overall great herping summer just got so much more interesting quick. Stay tuned!
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Sep 17, 2012 07:42
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My 9" African Black Milli passed away a few months ago. The only possible cause I can figure is that I forgot to wash the pesticides off some food. I was usually really good at washing it's food, so it seems unlikely, but I can't think of anything else I could have done or did wrong. It was both the easiest and least exciting animal I've owned.
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Sep 17, 2012 07:55
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Bobba, I'm going to have to warm you up to bugs one day, haha.
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Sep 17, 2012 08:15
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Tucson herp show is coming up! So excited. I don't know if my mom is looking for anything, but I kinda want a pair or two of emperor scorpions. I've always wanted to breed them, and they would be cool for Halloween decor. Wow. I sound like one of those spoiled housewives who only wants a cat to match their furniture. "I need an emperor scorpion as a prop!"
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Sep 17, 2012 21:59
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The many     His setup (no, that's not glitter fabric, it's shower curtain that's been freshly misted, but it looks equally fabulous)  Oh...hello there.  I got exactly this one full body shot of Glyphie (below) before she immediately ran up to her favorite perch above the background to look at me suspiciously.    "Unless you have bugs or a mister, lady, gtfo." And I'm never able to get any good shots of Dalek, the white lines are incredibly fast and shy.   (I really need to clean that bottom, jeez) But Carmine's been sleeping all day out in the open, just like this. Stupid fat gecko.  
Captain Foxy fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 05:27
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I really wish I had the knowledge and experience to own a chameleon, but it will just never be a good fit for my lifestyle. I love their angry, derpy little faces so much. Now my question, since Oscar the beardie was running around so much in his little 40gal breeder, I got him the 80gal long. All day long he still runs back and forth, back and forth clawing at the sides of the tank. It's an excruciating noise. He sometimes does this for hours at a time. Vet status checks out, as do lighting and diet, so what, is a 6ft freaking tank not enough?
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Sep 18, 2012 06:14
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Olive Bar posted:I really wish I had the knowledge and experience to own a chameleon, but it will just never be a good fit for my lifestyle. I love their angry, derpy little faces so much. Do you have enough hiding/basking spots? A cage that size should have a bunch.
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Sep 18, 2012 06:25
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I've been lurking this thread for months, and now I can finally post my own! This is my brand-new (though currently nameless, if you've got any good suggestions) veiled:   True to his species' rep, he's a grouchy little bastard and the epitome of reptilian "Get off my lawn!"-ness. He's not going brown here because of being misted, he's pissed because someone has dared to open the door to his castle without his permission:  A few moments after this I brought out the cricket bag to feed him. He waited until the last one hopped out of the bag, chased me out while hissing, then turned back green once his door was closed and proceeded to disappear into his pothos and snipe crickets in ridiculous ways that convinced me he was now just showing off. Apologies for so many crappy cell phone pics but he likes to puff up and hide in his pothos if I'm looking directly at him with either my eyes or a normal camera.  Had to take a picture after the lights went off tonight to finally get him looking pretty:  Dude loves his malabar spinach. Water source and a hiding spot all in one. Zoom shot before he could process what was going on:  Shot of the chameleon castle:  The cage top is at about 6'3" or so now, the side table is just there temporarily for electrical safety reasons. I haven't put a screw out to hang the power strip off of yet or picked up some wire loom either, but I plan on making it look as classy as possible. It's just been a bit of a process due to life imposing small and large emergencies on me all at the same time. I originally built the cage a few months ago for a juvenile that an acquaintance was going to give me(they went to a reptile expo, seller conveniently left out the part about chams being ultra-solitary creatures to talk her into buying two, found out the truth when one got the edge and started bullying the other) that wound up not working out in a fairly tragic way, it's just been sitting growing my plants since then and I'd been looking for a resident to fill it. It's 21" square, and 36" tall. I knocked up the stand over the course of a few days last week, haven't decided whether to stain or paint it yet. I'm thinking stain thus far, I lucked out and found boards with a really nice even grain when I bought the materials. When I built the cage I strung it with a couple Fluker's bend-a-branches to make some criss-crossing highways and then trained some plants to grow up and around them. There's the requisite Pothos plant, a Nepenthe palm, and his(and probably my) favorite plant ever, Malabar Spinach. If you haven't heard of this stuff, go call your local specialist nursery and ask about it. Scientific name is Basella alba. If you're South Indian it's in your grocery store and called Alug Bati. It's not only oxalate-free, but human-edible, grows in awful conditions(it survived heat and drought conditions that killed my rosemary bush), and can give kudzu a run for its money in a growth race. Oh and is packed with calcium, vitamins A and C, and a ton of other stuff. It's bad-rear end and he seems to think it's the tastiest thing ever when he's feeling like some veggies. It also shoots out braching vines and new shoots from the root base that are extremely trainable, so one plant can potentially make a giant vine maze in the cage if you prune it right and put half an ounce of effort into training it. Really can't praise it enough, I never saw it on any "safe plant" lists while I was researching what to use but it fits the criteria for a veiled cage's plant perfectly. Anything herbivorous's cage, really. Foxy: Photon is awesome and I love you and Pardalis' collection. If they didn't need so much extra misting and regulation of their environment I'd probably go for a Panther as well, the colors of the different locales are stunning. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 07:30
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Pretty boy. If anybody's going to the Pet Expo in Novi this weekend, I'll be giving two speeches a day. One on beginner reptiles & amphibians and one on basic reptile husbandry. Supposed to have something like 30k visitors over three days, so it's going to be crazy (exhausting). Think it's going to just be me and one other person from the zoo each day. We'll be taking up some rescue animals and one of our big sulcatas.
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Sep 18, 2012 13:35
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All I could think about reading your post Kilersquirrel, was that your Cham sounds like Oscar the grouch 
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Sep 18, 2012 23:20
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Captain Foxy posted:What are his temps? Ball pythons will go off food regularly due to temperature fluctuations. About 75-80 currently. His heating pad is broken and we're going for a new one tomorrow, obviously that's not the right temp.
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Sep 19, 2012 00:32
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Being a new juvenile Beardie Mom means I have a lot of questions... The weather is getting cold in this part of the world and I need to heat my 40 gal tank better. In this thread a while ago, I saw some kind of heat rope or cable, but looking back through the pages, I can't find it. Is it the Zoo Med brand that is best? Once we turn on the heat in the house he will be by a radiator so that should help, but I don't want to turn on the heat in September. I have two dome lights, one with a regular heat lamp and the other with infrared. I also have one of those heat rocks, but it's covered with a piece of driftwood to disperse the heat more evenly (read: it's not very effective). There are two different basking spots that the light hits. I only have one thermometer (and next time I'm out I'll be getting a second one) and it reads between 82-88 degrees, but the edges of the aquarium are much colder. Would you recommend a heat cable or a heating pad? Which brand to you use? Also, my Beardie doesn't seem very interested in vegetables. I've been giving him kale every day and peas every night, he gets a variety of fruit several times a week depending on what we're eating, and I've tried carrots and dandelion greens as well but he doesn't seem to be eating much (if any) of this stuff. He does eat mealworms and crickets, and they get dusted with calcium before they go in the cage. I also put some Bearded Dragon-specific pellets with the mealworms to try to trick him into eating that, but he's very good at eating around them. Is there any way to encourage him to eat his vegetables? Finally, Beardies get better with handling as they get older, right? Half the time he lets me pick him up without a struggle but the other half I have to chase him down. I try to warm up my hands before I handle him (I've got chronically freezing fingers) but he's still not a big fan of being touched. I try to handle him at least twice a day. Sorry for all the questions, I just want to make sure I'm giving him the best life possible.
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Sep 19, 2012 03:53
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Got some new additions from a friend of mine. They're not giant yet... in a few years these can reach up to nearly a foot and be as big around as a man's thumb. Baby Archispirostreptus gigas.   Also got a handful of baby Damon diadema. cute little guys  one more from when I unpacked them 
Big Centipede fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 05:03
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Koivunen posted:Being a new juvenile Beardie Mom means I have a lot of questions... I've had beardies since I was 7, and never had any of them on a heat lamp at night. I live in Canada and during the winters our house would drop to the mid-60s and it wouldn't really affect the beardies. Think about where they live, in a semi-desert environment, where it gets quite cold at night as stone and sand aren't really good at retaining heat. As far as providing additional heat, you might f-up the temperature gradient and do more harm. You beardie needs a hot basking spot (100F or so) and a cooler spot (80s). If you add flexwatt or something you might ruin that gradient. As for veggies, juveniles will not eat very much, and a few of mine never ate veggies until they were a year old. I just fed kale to the crickets and then fed them to the beardie. Good gut loaded food is best for veggie intake at that age. They are also skiddish when young, but as they get older will chill right out. I have only 1 beardie now because he's so boring. Just sits on his basking rock, or under his basking rock. As he gets older he will chill right out, and with handling of course. Open mouth and black beardies aren't inviting to hold.
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Sep 19, 2012 13:02
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Big Centipede posted:
We've got about a 3" A. gigas; it's about worthless as a zoo display, as it just hides. Not sure how we ended up with just one. Do the D. diadema sit out, or are they hiders?
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Sep 19, 2012 13:34
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unprofessional posted:We've got about a 3" A. gigas; it's about worthless as a zoo display, as it just hides. Not sure how we ended up with just one. Hard to tell so far since the cage isn't clear, but they seem to press themselves flat and sit on the back of the corkbark.
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Sep 19, 2012 14:09
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Big Centipede, yep, he has a bunch of hides. Maybe he's just bored, is there any way I can try to make things more interesting for him?
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Sep 19, 2012 18:39
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I'm freaking out right now. I just moved my RES into a new tank today, and I had previously read that play sand (like the kind for a kid's sandbox) made for a good substrate for turtles, so I have the entire bottom lined with sand. About five minutes ago, I just happened to be looking into the tank when I saw him haul off and take a big mouthful of sand. It looked like he spit at least most of it out but I'm really nervous that he swallowed some of it. edit: Just realized that in my haste I didn't even ask what I came here to ask. Is he gonna be okay? Obviously I'll have to take the sand out, but I moved him into another tub for now. He's still just a little guy, not even four inches yet, and I'm worried that sand will cause an impaction... CobwebMustardseed fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 02:27
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Hey Olive Bar, just a guess, but your guy could be on the hunt for a female. I know with snakes, chams and geckos, at least, the males tend to be more active at certain times when they feel the need to find a ladyfriend, patrolling their cages relentlessly before settling down. Either that or maybe the line of sight is bothering/stimulating him? Does he have a background? Kilersquirrel posted:I've been lurking this thread for months, and now I can finally post my own! Nice looking boy! Sounds like he's a standard male veiled for you. Have you tried hand-feeding him, or offering from a deli cup? Pardalis can probably speak more to care than me, since she's the expert, but I know that they do grow to recognize their keepers through feedings. Mine hates me but he's a teenager so he's all 'lol gently caress u mom' right now and will hopefully grow out of it. He relaxes when being misted and does drink in front of me, so I'm getting somewhere, at least. Try fasting him for an extra day before feeding him, and throw some dusted/gut-loaded feeders in a deli cup/in your tongs or fingers. If you avert your eyes and are willing to wait for up to 5-10 minutes, he may focus enough on the food to grab one. They need both eyes to look at the prey, so if he's looking at you suspiciously, he won't be able to target. quote:When I built the cage I strung it with a couple Fluker's bend-a-branches to make some criss-crossing highways and then trained some plants to grow up and around them. There's the requisite Pothos plant, a Nepenthe palm, and his(and probably my) favorite plant ever, Malabar Spinach. Thanks for the tip about this! We'll definitely be on the look out for it for our own veiled, and I'm always needing more plants. Live is definitely the way to go. I will definitely pick up another cham at some point, and I'm thinking a male Fisher's or a Montium, but possibly a Veiled. I was drawn to Panthers over them for the coloring, but I like what I see in the heavy turquoise-line male Veileds. Captain Foxy fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 04:37
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Captain Foxy posted:Nice looking boy! Sounds like he's a standard male veiled for you. Have you tried hand-feeding him, or offering from a deli cup? Pardalis can probably speak more to care than me, since she's the expert, but I know that they do grow to recognize their keepers through feedings. Mine hates me but he's a teenager so he's all 'lol gently caress u mom' right now and will hopefully grow out of it. He relaxes when being misted and does drink in front of me, so I'm getting somewhere, at least. I've progressed to the point where he'll eyeball a cricket for a bit and consider taking it from me before hissing and hiding, so that's progress. I plan on getting some waxworms this weekend and using those in conjunction with shiny new tongs to get him to hopefully chill out some and start associating tasty food with me. He was under some heavy cage stress for a while(adopted him from a PetsMart whose Pet Care manager had no idea what he was doing with regards to reptiles and was keeping him in one of those Zilla slide-top cages that are somewhere between 10 and 20 gallons) and definitely learned to associate negative things with people, so I imagine I'm climbing a slightly steeper hill than somebody who is working with a younger specimen or one that has been treated properly for the majority of its life. He will drink for me if he's feeling thirsty though, which is reassuring. I never expect to have him be willing to climb right onto me like some people's chams will but if we can at least progress to "not hissing and hiding immediately when I open the door" I think I'll be happy. He absolutely lays into his crickets moments after I put the door between us, so he's definitely not terrified into immobility or anything terrible like that. Oh, and my malabar has been sprouting new leaves lately and what do I find after work today? Chameleon head-shaped bites out of every tender new leaf, haha. edit: Oh, and seriously, does anybody have any good ideas for a name? I suck and am uncreative. The only suggestion thus far is "Gene" as he is flashy, generally cranky, and has a very long tongue. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 06:13
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Poor guy, drat that's terrible care. Glad he's in good hands now. The spinach is probably helping loads with the recovery if the calcium levels are that high. He's on a good path with you since he'll at least consider feeding for you and will drink. I'd imagine with enough time you could 'tame' him to a reasonable level of interaction. Personally I kinda like it when they go all hissing dinner plate and try to eat your face. Kilersquirrel posted:edit: Oh, and seriously, does anybody have any good ideas for a name? I suck and am uncreative. The only suggestion thus far is "Gene" as he is flashy, generally cranky, and has a very long tongue. I've been on a Doctor Who bender for the last month leading up to the new season, so what about Silurian? Just hope he isn't secretly an allegory for Native Americans as dinosaurs.
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Sep 20, 2012 06:50
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!! I just checked on my Tokays and they have laid another pair of eggs right by the first two! I expect the first eggs to hatch in about a month or so. I can't wait to see what my hatchlings look like; I have been toying with ordering morph animals to pair them with. Powder blue Tokays are just so pretty! If I could get the structure and stability from my pair with the color of a morph, I would be thrilled. Mama is pissed and wants me to GTFO   Daddy is hunting and doesn't care as much on the other side of the tank.  
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Sep 20, 2012 12:31
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Tokays are awesome and I wish we had them rather than goldens. Only tokay morph that I've thought is as nice as the species is the high orange.
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Sep 20, 2012 12:59
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To be honest, the normal coloration is my favorite. However I am very spoiled as my pair of "normals" are very, very nicely colored. The only morphs I would be into are Powder Blue, hypomelanistic, and the boldest calicos but even then none of them are as stunning as a healthy normal imo.
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Sep 20, 2012 13:05
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Meet Apep and Kiyo, the ever inquisitive beardies...
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Sep 20, 2012 17:48
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Captain Foxy posted:Poor guy, drat that's terrible care. Glad he's in good hands now. The spinach is probably helping loads with the recovery if the calcium levels are that high. He's on a good path with you since he'll at least consider feeding for you and will drink. I'd imagine with enough time you could 'tame' him to a reasonable level of interaction. To be fair to the guy, he was forced into his position unwillingly(I was a Pet Care Manager too for a whlie and in this district the DM makes you be a PCM before you can be promoted to Presentation Manager; the positions have pretty much zero skill/knowledge overlap. He's retarded.) and corrected everything I pointed out pretty much immediately and asked me to write down the right/better way to do the husbandry. But yeah, it was pretty awful care and I'm legitimately shocked he doesn't have some real signs of MBD. I've been dusting all his food with the ZooMed phosphorus-free Repti-Calcium, how long do you think I should do so before trimming it down to just some of his food? I knew he could use the extra vitamin/calcium to help recover from the stress but I don't want to stray into hypervitaminosis territory either. I have no idea how naming him after a Silurian did not occur to me, I possess and have seen literally every single Doctor Who episode that has been televised and am in general a humongous Who nut.
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Sep 21, 2012 06:54
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Ant farm shmant farm... I'm attempting to keep a paper wasp colony. I was expressly forbidden from doing so by the wife, but I'm wagering she won't notice, so FB friends, don't mention it.
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Sep 21, 2012 09:01
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Big Centipede posted:Ant farm shmant farm... I'm attempting to keep a paper wasp colony. I was expressly forbidden from doing so by the wife, but I'm wagering she won't notice, so FB friends, don't mention it. Awesome. How and where? I haven't done anything about the wasp nest in my window, so I guess you could say I'm passively raising a yellowjacket colony. 
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Sep 21, 2012 16:42
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So I'm turning that big tank with the background into a a viv with actual live plants and poo poo. Whats a good place to order springtails and isopods? I just siliconed the background on. That stuff didn't smell nearly as bad or strong as I've read. It kinda smelled like mustard.
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Sep 21, 2012 20:25
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Oscar doesn't have a background, and he isn't in a busy part of the apartment. He's poo poo out of luck if he is just horny. Edit: Well, I’ve done a whole lot of complaining about the guy, so I might as well post some photos, he’s pretty handsome, he’s 1 this month.     Olive Bar fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Sep 22, 2012 |
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Sep 22, 2012 01:04
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Just turned one eh?  Yeah I bet he's just horny. His thought process is probably TIME TO MAKE THE BABIES MUST GET OUT OF THIS TANK AND INTO A LADY 
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Sep 22, 2012 04:06
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