Omg you guys she's finally here!

I ordered her some stuff to make her enclosure a little more naturalistic once I’m ready to move her off the paper towels. A nice little rock cave, some fake plants, some more coconut bedding (I already have some, but it was on sale, so I figured I’d stock up). I debated getting her a more natural-looking water dish, but I told myself I wasn’t going to spend a ton of money on things she’s just going to outgrow. I justified buying the plants because I can move those over to her larger enclosures, and I can give the rock cave to my KSB when the blood outgrows it…but I couldn’t justify the water bowl, since I’d have no real use for it once she gets bigger.

I can’t wait until I can start making her tub a little prettier. I hate how sterile and unnatural it looks right now. I know she probably doesn’t mind, she has everything she needs, but I’ll feel better when she has some decor and clutter besides crumpled paper towels.

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Fwiw=for what its worth

So, for me when i say normal im talking about color. I giess i would be clearer if i said wild type, to idebtify color vs pattern.

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Yeah, in most snake talk, normalbor wild type means a snake with no mutations (color or pattern). Would usually say normal color or normal pattern so its clear what about the animal is normal haha. Either way, i dont think anyone here is an elitist thats gonna give you too much grief, i was just making a light hearted jab :P. Everyone says things differently :slight_smile:

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:sweat_smile::sweat_smile: my badddd!

As you were. :grin:

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No name yet, but I’m toying with the idea of naming her Portia, after the character in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. She’s one of my favourite Shakespearean female leads (Lady Macbeth is my favourite, but I’d rather not saddle her with such a sinister name unless she proves it suits her, haha).

I’ll see how I feel about it as time goes on.

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The first name that pops into my mind is Athena from Greek Mythology.

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I’ve always liked that name, but my supervisor has a daughter named Athena, so it might be kinda weird for him if I gave my snake the same name as his daughter, haha (he’s one of relatively few people I know who thinks my snakes are cool). I also had a friend in high school named Athena.

Even though I usually prefer to give my pets human names (rather than things like Spot or Fluffy), I still prefer to avoid sharing pet names with humans I actually know.

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Cute as a button, glad your kid made it home safe :smile: Who was the purchase from, if you don’t mind me asking?

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She was produced and sold to me by Victor La Luz Reptiles. He was really great, very responsive to all my questions, sent me unsolicited weekly updates while we were waiting for the weather in Memphis to be warm enough to ship (weather in Florida, where she was being shipped from, and California, where I am, was of course fine, it was just that annoying layover in Memphis that was holding things up, since they have actual winter there), and was just generally a great seller to work with, which was much-appreciated from a first-time buyer like myself.

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The new baby just took her first meal (with me)! I wasn’t even planning to try feeding her for at least a few days, but when I was preparing a mouse for my sand boa, she seemed very interested, going over to the side of her tub and flicking her tongue. So I figured meh, may as well give it a shot. She wouldn’t take it off the tongs (she showed definite interest, but I couldn’t quite get her to strike), so I left it in her tub, turned off the lights, and left her alone. That was about an hour and a half ago. I just went downstairs to grab something and took a quick peak, and the mouse is gone! Yaaay!! :hugs:

Very pleased we’ve cleared that particular hurdle. I know bloods are usually good eaters, but I always have a little anxiety about getting a new snake to eat for me. Hopefully she’ll continue to be a good eater for me!

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Im right there with you about first feeding worries. Oddly enough, and i know this isnt a hugely popular choice, i offer food the same day i bring them home, or a day later. Doing this ive had absolutely 100% success getting everyone eating. The 2 times i did not offer food immediately, it took both snakes about a month to start eating.

Glad your baby took their meal without issue!!

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Yeah, I know there are a lot of varying opinions on when to first offer food to new snakes. I don’t think there’s any single correct answer. I usually like to wait about a week, but I also go off the snake’s behaviour. If they’re hiding all the time and seem really afraid of me, I might wait longer. If they’re out and exploring and seem pretty confident, and/or show interest in food, like in this case, I’ll move that date up. I’ve never had any serious issues getting snakes eating, but there’s always that niggling anxiety of “oh g-d, what if they NEVER eat for me?!?!”

My current sand boa was actually my most stubborn customer, but that was mostly because she’d only ever been fed live when she came to me around age 9, and I wanted to get her on f/t (I’ll feed live if I absolutely have to, but I prefer to avoid it for a whole host of reasons). Even still, her hunger strike only lasted about 3 weeks before she started taking f/t, which is really nothing for a robust adult snake. And she’s been a perfect eater for me ever since. She’ll even eat when she’s deep in blue. Still, those three weeks of uncertainty were stressful! Really glad I didn’t have to go through something like that with the new baby.

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Just curious, does anyone happen to have any experience keeping bloods in a bioactive enclosure? It seems like their temp and humidity requirements could make them a good candidate for bioactive, but I haven’t really heard of anybody keeping them that way.

I know they tend to pee a lot, which necessitates more frequent substrate changes. I was curious if bioactive might help with that, or if it would just make bloods a bad candidate for bioactive.

Anyone have any thoughts?

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The amount of liquid urine makes them rather bad for bioactive. I don’t think I’ve seen someone successfully keep them in a proper bioactive setup (not just throwing some isopods in and calling it a day). More than likely any living plants will be bulldozed once she gets some size too. Bedding changes are probably going to be less work than the hassle of keeping whatever microfauna is in the substrate alive once the deluge comes :rofl:

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That’s kind of what I figured, but I thought I’d ask anyway. Thanks for your input!

I’m trying to make some tentative plans for her adult enclosure and was just curious if that was even an option.

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I’ve decided the name Portia just doesn’t work for her. I think I’m going to name her Mina, after the character in Dracula. (Get it? Because she’s a blood python. I’m so clever.) Mina seems to suit her. I couldn’t tell you why. It just does.

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I have my ball pythons and carpet pythons in bioactive (as well as a rat snake and a leopard gecko, but as stated, the snakes are unplanted for obvious reasons. I tried to put in some hardy plants, but there just wasnt enough sunlight. My leo has UV, so his plants are thriving, and since my rat snake is a pet and as such in a display tank, he will likely get UV and some plants too.

If you have proper lighting for plant life, and planted hardy plants that can survive being mushed, it could work, but its kind of a losing battle haha

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You should give pothos a try, i had it with a 5 ft boa for years and it put up fine with the punishment.

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Yeah, I’ve heard that pothos are good, hardy plants for snake enclosures. But bloods get so chunky and thick and heavy that I worry she’ll just bulldoze it. They’re chonkier than boas. Plus I’ll have to do substrate changes fairly frequently because of how much they pee, and having live plants will make that trickier. I’ll probably stick to non-bioactive, but still naturalistic, just with fake plants that will hopefully withstand the abuse.

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Well, I’ve had my first two handling sessions (besides the initial arrival inspection) with Mina, and they’ve gone pretty well. I know it hasn’t quite been the 10-14 days that many people recommend, but I noticed a couple small spots of blood from her devoured mouse on the paper towels, so I wanted to swap that out for a clean one. Plus she’s eaten, had time to digest, and generally seems to be settling in well, so since I had to move her to change her paper towels anyway, I figured we’d probably be okay starting some short handling sessions.

She was pretty visibly tense and nervous with me last night, but not bitey or strikey. She did give me a couple little baby hisses when I first scooped her up (which was more adorable than anything), and she got sort of startled by my chinchilla making a loud noise in the next room (probably dropped a chew stick from one of her high perches :roll_eyes:), and did sort of a little bluff strike at my thumb, but that was as dramatic as it got.

She was much more relaxed this evening. She was still a little nervous when I first reached in and scooped her up, but there was no hissing, and after a few minutes of holding her in my hands/lap, her body visibly relaxed considerably and she became rather curious and exploratory, which was really neat to see. We did have a minor mishap when I first got her out of the tub. She shot out of the tub/my hands and managed to wrap herself around the cord of her heat mat. :person_facepalming:But she let go and slithered into my hand after I gently tickled her tail. It was smooth sailing after that.

She’s so amazing! I love the way her eyes follow everything. I’m completely in love with her. Eventually I’ll take some more pictures, but since I get a little clumsy trying to take pictures one-handed, I haven’t wanted to risk potentially stressing her out by trying to fumble with my phone while holding her. For now I’m just trying to focus on building some trust and proving to her that I’m not going to eat her.

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