Whatever Works

It's almost bedtime for me, but I couldn't go down without sharing the feeding time story for the night.

I was on my own with the snakes this evening since the Gum Zombie was tied up with homework.  I started by giving our pet rats a tiny piece of cheese and a wedge of apple each.  I tell myself this makes up for the fact that I'm thawing out their frozen brethren a few doors down.

Anyway, once I assured myself our rats were fully distracted, I got the snakes' food ready.  Sarah has moved up to ASF fuzzies and had absolutely no problem sucking down two of those and a tiny mouse pink on top of that.  Slither had two pinks as opposed to his former three (hence Sarah's ingesting of a third rodent for the evening), but one of them was admittedly much larger than the other.

Lucy pounded her dinner in good order. Then there's Scales.

Most of the time he's a very good eater, but this week he got a bit picky.  I'm sure it didn't help that he was grabbing ahold of his food in the middle rather than at one end or another.  I tried repositioning it when he'd let go; I even removed his food entirely and blew my blowdryer on it on high to make sure it was nice and warm for him!

No dice.

Finally I said the heck with it, put the top back on his enclosure, and got in the shower with Katy Perry blasting in the background.

When I was finished I checked Scales again.  Dinner was gone.  All I can figure is we now have one snake who needs a little privacy and Katy Perry in order for him to consent to dine  Like the title says, hey, whatever works.

Best Told In Pictures (okay, one picture)

Because I'm too lazy to type this again, here's the latest:

But regarding the shedding being done, I've gotta say I'm relieved.  Now both boys are back to their usual, pleasant selves.  Whew!

Updates!

All four snakes went to the vet last week, and all four got clean bills of health.  Both ball pythons weighed in around 250 grams, which was impressive considering their last weights were more like 200 grams.  Sarah-the-Sand-Boa weighed a whopping FIFTY grams, and Slither tilted the scale at a respectable 35 grams.

Not bad for any of them.  My current mission, as assigned by my exotics vet, is to bring in fecal samples from all four snakes.  Unless the sand boas are uncharacteristically cooperative it's more likely she'll just get two samples:  one each from Lucy and Scales.

For news of the shedding, both Sarah and Lucy shed a couple of weeks ago.  Scales and Slither are both mid-shed-cycle, with Slither once again being in the Longest. Shed. Cycle. EVER.  Scales is giving him a run for his money though.  We'll see which one manages to get over it first.  Meanwhile, both are acting like hormonal teens, i.e., moody and secretive.  Slither has completely buried himself in his substrate and Scales has his back to the opening of his hide on the rare occasion he'll even let himself be seen.  Fortunately they'll get over it when they're done with the sheds.

Unlike my teenager :P

Oh, and I have to admit that Sarah, aka HellSnake, has actually calmed way down!  She's much less thrashy (except around her shed cycle, and then who can blame her?) and is in general pretty pleasant to carry around and play with which is a far cry from her formerly nippy neonate self.  Today I took her up to the reptile shop to try and pick some new food for her since she's downing pinks like they're Jelly Bellys.  Seriously, she sucked down four this past Thursday (Slither wasn't hungry and Sarah is an accommodating garbage disposal) and was even looking for a fifth!  So it's definitely time to move her up a bit.  We're going to try her out on some f/t ASF fuzzies and see how she likes those.

As for Lucy?  She's lovely, and tonight when I took her out she just felt huge.  She's getting some heft on her, which is rather nice.  Just keep pounding those rodents, girl.

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Oh yes, rats!  I'm sure everyone will be thrilled to know that Oops survived his neuter and is healing nicely.  He's finished with his anti inflammatories and just has one more week of antibiotics.  Then next weekend he gets to move back in with the girls, none of whom managed to get pregnant during their mutual exposure.  Hooray!

Hopefully there will be much rejoicing. 

Happy Heart Day!

Sarah, who's freshly shed and fed in this picture, says Happy Valentine's Day :)

On the other end of the weird pet spectrum, Oops (our accidental male rat), goes in today to be fixed.  Bless his heart, he's a sweet boy.

(Poor baby -- we're not telling him today's Valentine's day, so shhhh!!!!)