She is looking super beautiful!
I certainly think so…but then, I’m a little biased. 
Every time I see her, and especially when I handle her, I’m just astounded by how gorgeous she is. It’s such a privilege to care for and interact with such a beautiful animal. 
Once I finally got her back inside and closed up the lid, she cruised around looking out the sides for a while before finally seeming to give up. Then she got a drink of water and settled down underneath her foliage.
She really is a joy to handle. So docile, gentle, and inquisitive. 
It’s been a while since I updated…but that’s mostly because there’s been nothing super exciting to report. Mina continues doing great, she’s eating like a champ and growing like a weed. She’s going to need to be moved into a bigger tub soon, as she’s quickly outgrowing her current tub. It seems like just yesterday that this tub almost seemed too big for her! Fortunately I already have her next tub waiting in the wings. Once I move her into it, I’m going to start shopping in earnest for her adult PVC enclosure, because once she outgrows the next tub, she’ll be ready for that permanent adult enclosure.
I think she’s entering another shed cycle, because her colours are starting to look slightly dull. I’ll probably start giving her some warms baths soon to try to avoid the shedding issues we had last time.
She continues to be a joy to handle. Very calm, docile, and curious. I just love interacting with her. She likes to explore, but she always likes to keep some physical contact with me, which I think is adorable. When she’s exploring the table or sofa where I’m sitting with her, she always keeps her tail loosely wrapped around my wrist or finger when she stretches out her body to check stuff out.
I’m not even sure if anyone has any interest in reading these updates, but I still think it’s fun to keep a record of her progress.
I am super happy to hear that she is doing so well for you!
Thanks! She’s such a joy to have, I love her so much.
I can’t believe how heavy she’s gotten! For some reason I seem to notice her increase in weight more than her growth in length and girth.
Same with Willow and Kai! I think it is because we are feeling the change not just observing a slight change.
I’m thinking that Mina is ready to move up to medium rats. She’s getting so big!
I’m also thinking that she’s getting to the point where I should reduce her feeding frequency. I’ve been feeding her every 10 days, but I’m thinking I should start reducing it to every 14 days, especially since she’s ready to move up to larger prey. Anyone have any thoughts on that? She’ll be a year old next month. Time flies!
Mina is a rockstar. She just had a perfect shed with no assistance from me.
She finally went out of blue a few days ago, and I wanted to give her at least a little bit of time to see if she could shed on her own, since she doesn’t really love it when I plop her in a bath. This morning I was seeing no progress, so I cleaned out a tub to use to soak her when I got home from work today. Well, I just got home to discover a perfect, complete shed that she got out of all on her own! There were some bits of bedding in her water bowl and the shed itself was slightly damp, so I suspect she just gave herself a soak in her water bowl and that was all she needed. The shed was complete and perfect, from head and eyecaps to the tip of her tail.
I’m still not sure why her first shed with me was so difficult, but I’m very relieved that it doesn’t seem likely to become an ongoing problem. I think maybe she’d just outgrown her water bowl during that first shed, so she wasn’t able to soak on her own. I’ll just have to make sure I keep stepping up the size of her water bowl as she grows.
I managed to snap a quick picture of Mina’s fresh paint job while she was facing away from me. Sadly her colours don’t pop all that well against the wood of my dining room table, but she still looks gorgeous.
Mina finally took her rat off the tongs last night! Except she didn’t really strike it…she just sort of reached up and grabbed it very gingerly and politely. It was actually pretty adorable.
Peekaboo.
She’s so freaking cute I can hardly stand it.
She is really beautiful! I love her colors even through a camera!
Yeah, unfortunately the camera washes her out quite a bit. She’s much brighter in person.
Mina actually struck her rat off the tongs last night! She struck it, constricted it, the whole nine yards. It was so awesome!!
It was also her first birthday on the 15th. I guess she’s a big girl now, and does big girl things, like strike feeding.
Congratulations! She is a wonderful snake.
Just moved Mina into yet another larger tub. I can’t believe how big she’s getting! My hope is that this will be the last tub before she moves into her adult PVC enclosure that I ordered a few weeks back.
Her adult colours are also starting to show. It seems like every day, she gets a little darker, redder, and brighter. She just keeps getting prettier! I’ll try to get some fresh pictures of her in her new digs once I’ve given her a chance to settle in a bit (she’s not thrilled with me at the moment, because I had to pop her into a small holding bin for a few minutes while I transferred her heat mat from the old tub to the new one, and she intensely dislikes being in that small holding bin).
Ugh, I really messed up. I didn’t set up her heat mat and thermostat properly, so when I checked on her yesterday morning, her hot spot was about 95F
Fortunately, she was coiled up on the cool end when I discovered the problem, and the ambient temp there was only about 80F, though the temp on the bottom of the tub where her tail end was sitting (near the heat mat, though not directly on top of it) was nearly 90F. I checked her over and she doesn’t have any burns (I don’t think it ever got hot enough to burn, thankfully), though she was a little huffy and defensive, probably because she was too hot. I just hope she hasn’t suffered any neurological damage. I’m so angry at myself. I can’t believe I made such a stupid, careless mistake and I’ll never forgive myself if it caused any permanent damage. So far she seems okay, but I’ll be keeping a very close eye on her.
When I discovered the problem, I removed the heat mat and set it up with an empty tub and the thermostat just to make sure it was indeed user error and not an equipment failure, and everything seems to be working fine, so after a few hours of letting the tub cool off, I re-attached the mat and thermostat and this morning everything seems okay. I just really, really hope that Mina’s all right. She seems okay so far.
Ugh, I’m so mad at myself!! Hopefully anyone who reads this can learn from my mistake and will triple-check all heating elements and thermostat set-ups when putting together new enclosures. I know I will going forward.
