Martha Makes Her Debut and Monty is not impressed.........tee hee!!!

You guys are great!!! Ya, I can't get the picture to load for some reason. I'm going to try again here. The reason why we can't have rats here is because of the hanta virus that mice carry. Since rats are such large vermin and Alberta is mostly farmland (wheat to be specific) they have banned them in order to prevent an epidemic of mass proportion. They are legal in British Columbia, because of the mountainous/rainforest climate. They have a difficult time reproducing in the wild in B.C. Alberta would be over run in a matter of about a year if they were allowed to breed in the wild. Alberta has a lot of bans of a lot of different things (mainly different kinds of bugs (warble fly to prevent infestation of cattle (which is another big thing in Alberta) as well, the pine beetle (which infests our evergreen tree population and decreases its value for the other big industry, logging. Obviously, people don't raise these bugs as pets, but they do travel on a variety of different substrates. It is these substrates that are not allowed in Alberta (certain types of wood and plants). Anyways, I have one more question for you. Since I put the coconut bark in Martha's cage, her humidity is sitting at a very high 90% because I had to soak the bark in water to get it to expand. Should have I dried it out a bit before putting it in her tank? It's holding the heat very nicely, and the temps are excellent (86 deg. on warm end, 91 under the basking lamp, and 79-80 deg on the cool end with the screen left uncovered over top. I took your advice and did the tinfoil/duct tape thing and it worked well. I do however still have to put a sheet over the lamp and up to the middle of the lid in order to keep it really warm. Should I now have to do this? Should the tinfoil and duct tape keep it warm enough? I have a hole on the warm end for the lamp to sit on, so some air is escaping from there (thus the need for the sheet). I don't have the sheet over the cool end at all. I can feel the humidity escaping through the cool end, but will a few days of high humidities hurt Martha? We take her out daily and she's nice and warm and dry. She shouldn't get stomach rot from the high humidity should she, if it's only for a short period of time like maybe a week. Or as long as it takes to dry this bark up a bit anyways. I can't squeeze any water out of it with my hands, so it's not saturated, but it is wet to touch and when I blot it with a paper towel, the towel does soak up wet. Any suggestions on how to get this bark dried out faster and get the humidity down for Martha? Boy, this heat/moisture stuff sure is tricky to get right. I just cannot seem to get it right. Either it's too warm on one end, too moist on the other, etc....lol. It's tricky stuff. Jen, let me know how your breeding goes. When do you start? Somewhere I read it's like the end of October or something???.....It would be so rewarding to produce some babies. From what I've read, there's nothing like it when you see those eggs tear open and those little noses pop out looking for food and someone to love them. I cannot wait to get Martha and Monty together to breed some day. They will make a nice couple. He's got to gain some weight first though, and I've got to learn alot more than I know right now. Getting those temps right is my biggest struggle. I'm sure I will get it soon though. with your advice and some luck on my side, I am sure things will perk up soon. That video of the boa eating the python is so amazing. The pictures are even pretty cool. I can't believe it actually at the ball python. Did it re-eat it after it regurged it? Was it a dominance thing, or just a hungry thing? Well, I've written enough for this letter. My ramblings are over. Take care "hey"? lol

Cher

I'm not sure if the boa ate the ball python out of hunger or dominance, but my guess would be both. It didn't re-eat it, the owner removed the dead body after it was regurgitated. There was also a member of our forums that had one ball python eat the other after she put a new one in with the first one.

Most people start breeding in October as far as I've read. I'm waiting a few months so I can get a few more weeks of feeding into my girls and my pastel male.

You definitely should have let the coconut bark dry out a bit before putting it in there...I had that part written in the Glass Tank Setup thread. You can take it out of her tank, put it on a baking sheet, and let it lay out in the sun for a few hours...that'll dry it out enough. It shouldn't be sopping wet when you put it in her tank, just damp enough that it clumps without being able to squeeze out water. I would take it out today and let it dry, then put it back in there. The humidity won't hurt her, but living on wet substrate could irritate her belly scales. The wet substrate is one of the reasons your heat isn't stable...once it dries out a bit, the heat will rise and you won't need the sheet over the tinfoil/duct tape. It'll be just fine. As long as you have a thermostat regulating everything, it should keep itself set.

I will do that tomorrow. The substrate will clump in a ball without any water squeezing out, but I still think it is too wet. Im going to put it out in a big pan that I have. Well, I am also going to try martha on a frozen mouse tonight. Just to see if she is interested., I have a few left that I want to use up before I buy her some live ones. They are still good and can be eaten. I dont thing it will hurt her. I read that either is fine. I know the petstore told me that they tried her on frozen but she wouldnt eat it. You never know. Its worth a try. Ill let you know how it goes. Do you have any pics of your snakes? I would love to see them. I seen a few in your "how to's", but not all of them. Do you have any posted on this site? Bye........bye.....

Cher

Do you have an email address so I can send you my picture link at yahoo? You can see all my snake pics and pictures of life up in northern Canada. I would love to see more pics of you and your snakes......kids.....family.....house......whateve r!!!!, lol

Cher

Do you have an email address so I can send you my picture link at yahoo? You can see all my snake pics and pictures of life up in northern Canada. I would love to see more pics of you and your snakes......kids.....family.....house......whateve r!!!!, lol

Cher my email: mat_nurse@yahoo.ca

The pet store may not have warmed it enough or wiggled it to spark her interest. Thaw the mouse in hot water in your sink for about 15 minutes, then once it feels bendable and not frozen at all in the middle, dry the fur and warm it by shining her heat lamp on it for a minute. Then hold it by the tail with a pair of tongs and wiggle it slightly a few inches from her nose. Usually the ones that have a chance at taking frozen/thawed food will take it this way.

Here's my e-mail, you can drop me a line anytime:

jennifer.harrison@hotmail.com

Martha ate 3 frozen mice last night. Well, they were thawed, but previously frozen. She took them right away. I'll feed them to her until they are all gone and then feed her live ones after that. I paid $2 a mouse for the frozen ones, and I pay $4 each for the live ones. I will try and strike a deal. I do not want to raise my own mice......they stink and I would have to keep them in my garage for the winter because it gets too cold up here to keep them outside. Maybe when we get a shed built, I could raise them in there and it wouldn't matter if they stunk or not. Do you raise your own mice? If so, how do you handle the smell? The lady that I buy them off of has them in a room at the back of her store, and when you walk into the store through the front door, you can smell mouse right away. Going into the room in another story. She has thousands of them, and the smell is just rank. It stinks her whole store up. Her store feels dirty when you walk in because of it. Which is too bad because she has alot of really nice stuff, and she's a really nice lady, but I am sure it turns alot of customers away. It would have turned me away if I didn't need the live mice so badly since they don't sell them anywhere else in GP. I'll send you my yahoo photo link so you can look at my collection of pictures. Just to warn you, there is an album of pictures of my daughter Tamara who passed away two years ago this past July. The pictures are of her at her funeral. So if you don't want to see that kind of thing, then I suggest you do not look at them. Otherwise, I welcome you to see how peaceful and beautiful she looks. She was seven years old when she passed from pneumonia complicated by severe cerebral palsy. She was sick since birth and was severely handicapped. It was a real blessing for her to go when she did because she was starting to suffer more and more each day. Anyways, happy viewing and let me know what you think of them if you find anything you like in particular. I would love to see some pics of you too!!! If you aren't into that sort of thing, that's ok I understand, but feel welcome to view mine anytime. I am watching my favorite movie right now this morning. Cold Mountain......I just absolutely love it. Jude Law and Nicole Kidman make such an awkward couple, and I absolutely hate the ending, but I love the rest of the movie so much that I watch it at least once every week or two. What's your favorite movie?

Jen, I need your help. It's been two days now, and I cannot get the temps up and the humidities down in my tanks. I did everything according to your display page with the coconut bark and duct taped/tin foil screen lids, UTH with overhead lamp, etc.....I cannot get the temps up over 80 deg on the warm end, and up over 73 on the cool end. My snakes are really cold. I dried out the coconut bark enough to where it's just moist and you cannot squeeze any water out when you squish it in your hands. I also put some wood chips on the cool end to cut down on moisture. I will take some pics for you of my set up for both tanks and hopefully I can get them to upload here for you, otherwise, I'll post you my yahoo link and they'll be on there under "tank setups". The only thing I can think of why I cannot get the heat up is because I just put the coconut bark in over the UTH and it's taking a while for the heat to rise up through the stuff. That's the only other heat source I have besides the heat lamp. I have a 75 watt red light bulb in it. The tank is sealed otherwise because even when I put the blanket on over the whole tank and lamp, it doesn heat up much more than a couple of degrees. Please help!!! I am thinking maybe that I should put the bigger lamp on the 25 gallon tank and buy a larger wattage bulb for the 40 G breeder that I just bought. What do you think of that? my UTH's are working well. They are hot to touch on the bottom of the tank under the substrate. My snakes bellies are wet, so I put some wood chips over the coconut substrate where their hides are so that they don't lay right on the moist soil. It's made a big difference in their moisture that's on their skin. Monty is starting to get brown spots of a few scales on his belly. Is this belly rot? The scales are soft with teeny brown spots on them. They don't look too bad, but they are new developments. Also, Martha molted 3 and half weeks ago, and she is getting some red spots on her belly. When I push on them, they fade away for a few seconds, and then come back. It doesn't look like a molt belly. It looks like irritation. The humidity is at 90% in both cages. If I open the lids any more than the squares I've cut for the lamps and a bit of ventilation, then the heat goes way down. If I try and cover up the lamps with blankets to keep more heat in, the humidity jacks up and the glass drips. I am having some big difficulties here. Will it just take a while for the heat to seep up through the substrate?

Sounds like the coconut husk is still too damp, take it out and let it sun-dry again. The lamp wattages you have are OK, they should work just fine with the UTH. What kind of thermostat are you using to control them? You may not have your thermostat set right and that may be why you can't get the temps up. Try drying out the substrate in the sun for 4-5 hours today and then put it back in and give it a few hours to reheat. What kind of thermometer are you using?

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mat...?.dir=/171dscd