You KNOW your snakes

Just wanted to share this with you all!
Today Randy's son and grandkids, 6 and 3, stopped by with a Fathers Day gift. We introduced them to our snakes. I brought out our very calm Grey Banded king, the kids loved her, and his son held her for a while...
Later... after they had left... Randy got two phone calls from his son, he had just bought a young Red Tailed Boa! Randy told him what to check for..(in a healthy snake), housing needs, etc.
I guess we have 3 new snake lovers in this family!
On the home front...
The weather has been a bit warm lately, so tonight the hognose and Scarlett (Pueblan milk), refused to eat. They are both FAT... so maybe next week.
Everyone else ate normally except our Taiwan Beauty snake, He scarffed down his 2 large Jumbo Mice, then ate 3 regular adult mice... and was looking for more!
OH.... about the bite... all cleared up... it looked like two cat scratches with a bruise in the middle where he hit. ( I think he was more upset about it than I was!)
Happy Dads Day! Jan

I am sooo glad this kid DOESN'T own a computer.... otherwise this place would be FLOODED with newby posts!
Randy's son has called about 4 times today. The R/T Boa ate today... "was it too soon?".... She's in her water bowl, (head under water), "Can she drown, what's wrong with her?"... Questions about the UTH and the heat lamp.... "Is she too warm/ not warm enough?" He got a climbing stick from outside, "Can I just stick it in her cage?"
The kid is more worried about this snake than when his own SON was born!
I had to warn Randy about laughing about his son's concerns....
YOU HAVE TO TREAT EVERY CONCERN/WORRY as being important,
otherwise he might go somewhere else and get the wrong information!
I know we all get tired of seeing/answering the same questions.... but what if the person asking was your own child? Would you still post the same..."READ THE POSTS DOWN BELOW...? Just my .02 cents Jan

So most of our critters are in shed this weekend... The hognose isn't, and still isn't.. eating! Scarlett shed, ate two hoppers. Jaffo, the Blotched king, ate 3 small mice. And Teko, in shed, ate the last 2 mice!
But this isn't the main reason why I'm posting. I have recently become aware of the fact that some people don't know...POOP!
Yes, king snakes poop alot, usually 3 days after they are fed, and then 2 or 3 more...(We feed every Saturday.)
The Milksnake poops twice a week... The green snake ALL OF THE TIME!
Now about the TAIWAN BEAUTY Snake..... AAAAAHHHH!!!!
BIG...HUGE... and a smell that would send a sewer worker running for fresh air! Believe me, the smell would GAG A MAGGOT!
The Hognose... maybe once or twice.. depending how much he ate. But I noticed he pees BIG!
So I've covered KING, RAT, MILK, Green and Hognose snakes potty habits... and I hope you all have a very enjoyable 4th!
Just another weekend... Jan

We have lost 2 pets recently, that we loved the most...
Our leopard frog that we raised from a tadpole, DIED, and afterwards, the rough green snake, Greenlee, who was also eating the same crickets that our frog ate, past away.
Both were skinny, it was like they didn't want to eat the crickets we had bought from the petshop. Maybe the crickets had something fed to them was toxic to our critters? We made sure of their tanks, clean water, misting, the temps, NOTHING WAS CHANGED!!!! I am really bummed about this... I can't believe a reliable feeder dealer would do something in order to kill what ever ate his product! Randy said not to say anything to the pet store owner.... But... WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!!!
I hope no one else has to go through this.... JAN

You gotta keep in mind, unless the petstore breeds its own crickets, those bugs may have only been in the store a day or two and anything that might hvae been wrong with them could have been from the bug dealer. But it could just be a coincidence. If both were thin, maybe they both had an illness that took them down at the same time. I've never had a death or illness I could attribute to bad feeders but I guess it's possible.

Erin B

Went to the reptile show here in Puyallup, Wa., Oct. 23. AWESOME SHOW!
Found a frog we had really wanted, $16.00, a Pixie frog... Hey, we had really missed having a frog in our life, and we found the perfect one!
While we were looking through the different displays I spotted a black milksnake, juvinile, for $80.00. Well, to make a long story short, (No, Maybe), we get back to the car... I just felt like I had left my own child behind!
I went right back into the show to buy the black milksnake, and found out that the dealer was holding it for someone who had promised to buy it! I told him I had the money RIGHT NOW!... but he took my name and phone # and said if he didn't hear from the guy by closing time, he would call. I was in TEARS walking back to the car,
(Randy thought I'd lost my best friend).
The guy CALLED at 5:10 that night! NO SALE! We were on the road the next day, and I was SOOOOOOOO HAPPY!
The Pixie we named "Bubba" after a very good friend, and our new black milk snake... after a short span being called "Buck Wheat", I renamed him "ACE".
Ace and Bubba now make our home complete. (For now anyway)
Oh, BTW, my Variable king BIT me last weekend, now I have been bit by (almost) all of our boys! (Since ACE is a male, it's only a matter of time!)
Just another weekend... Jan

I had promised a snake shed from our Taiwan beauty snake to a gal at work (her son has medical problems, and she knew he would love it), but for the past 3 months... just sheds in pieces...
So this weekend Teko finally shed one beautiful shed...8 feet long. My friend was in tears today when she came to get it, along with a picture of Teko, of course.
Now for the sad part... Randy had always wanted a grey banded king snake, which we did 12/11/01. Sunday morning I found she had passed away. Star was a light Blair phase, orange, with perfect markings. She was a difficult feeder from the start, and we learned alot feeding her! Randy watched over her like she was his own child, but she had gone off feeding for a couple of weeks. I guess while we were at the reptile show last Saturday she pooped in her water dish and drank some, because later that night she regurged the live pink mouse we had fed her.
We had cleaned her water dish as soon as we got home.
So we waited a week and tried to feed her this Saturday, she wouldn't eat. I can't understand this, because I had the same thing happen with my eastern king 3 months ago, he's still a eating machine, and still as onery as ever!
Randy's heart is broken right now...... He really loved that snake.... NOT just another weekend... Jan