I moved Alice into her new habitat today and will post pictures later. She is due to be fed and depending on how she is behaving I will feed her tomorrow or wait until Monday.
New Skin And Full Belly
Alice shed last Friday. As is typical for her she stayed in her hide and used her boby to hold the skin as she slowly peeled off the old. I fed her 7 large mice today. Next week I plan to move her into a new habitat that I built for her. It will be slightly larger at a true 4′ x 2′ floor space.
Posted in Updates
Leave a comment
Time For Another Shed
I caught a glimpse of blue in Alice’s eyes when I was spot cleaning her habitat on Monday. It will be a week or two before we have any real updates. In the meantime, here is the video that my wife Susan, Tyler and Julia took of Alice’s last shed. The video is 10 minutes long and catches most of the last part of her shedding. This is great as I have never been able to actually see her shed.
Posted in Updates, Videos
2 Comments
After Dinner Comma
Alice had eat the day before and was just relaxing on the cool side. That side of her habitat is 20″ wide. She is coiled 3 times and laying on part of her tail. She is an easy 6′ long now at a little past her 3rd birthday.
Posted in Updates
Leave a comment
Fun Feeding Day
Drove back out to Mice Direct today to pick up a bag of large mice since Alice did not seem to like the jumbo adults. I also went back to the old way of feeding her in a separate bin that I used for the first two years I had her. She hammered the mice like a monster. She ate 7 large mice including one that was large enough to be considered a jumbo. I think she would have eat more if I had them thawed for her. If she keeps that up I will try rats again on down the road.
Posted in Updates
Leave a comment
Refused the XL Mice Again
I tried to get Alice to accept xl adult mice in an attempt to get her back on more properly sized food items. Last feeding she did eat one of the xl mice and well as a large mouse. She refused the other two xl mice I offered her. This feeding I could not even get her to accept one of the xl mice. I ended up feeding her the only two large mice that I had. I will try to feed her again on Friday and will have to break down and just feed her large mice.
Posted in Updates
Leave a comment
Snake Teeth Are Sharp
Alice waiting to be put back into her habitat
I made what my be my final attempt to get Alice back on rats today. I went to the Atlanta Repticon and talked a bit with one of the guys from Mice Direct. I may have figured out what happened that started this whole “I don’t want rats for dinner thing”. When I was feeding Alice medium rats and the size required for her increased but not so much that large rats were an option, I started adding mice to her feedings after she ate the medium rat. It was during this time that she seemed to lose interest in the rats. I should have been supplementing with rat pups instead of the mice. So I ended up buying a live rat pup for Alice in hopes that she would take the live rat pup and opening the door to following that with frozen rats. No dice. As soon as she caught the scent of the rat she lost interest in it. I had purchased a 10 pack of frozen adult mice and ended up feeding her some of those. So the lesson is never give mice once you have a snake on rats. You might end up like me and have a 6 foot long snake that needs to be fed 5 or more mice at a time to be satisfied.
When feeding Alice mice I usually hold them by the tail and let her take it out of my fingers. On one of the mice I held on a little longer and her teeth grazed my one of my knuckles as she was grabbing the mouse away from me. It did not feel like anything had happened and I went on feeding her. I looked down at my hand a little later and could see the blood on my knuckle. I washed it off later and could see that only one tooth broke the skin. Very interesting.
Posted in Pictures, Updates
Leave a comment
New Adventures and Feeding
Had Alice out for a little while before feeding her today. Generally it is recommended not to handle a snake before feeding it due to stress. Alice really does not seem to care one way or the other as long as it is just handling and nothing like traveling or a visit to the vet. I held her for a little while and then carried her into the bedroom where my wife was reading. She seemed to enjoy sniffing around while crawling on the comforter and poking her head under pillows. After her little exploring session I put her in a plastic bin so I could clean and straighten her habitat. Once I moved her back into her habitat, she happily removed 6 large mice from my fingers. I am still working on a plan to get her back to eating rats. I will need a day that I can run back and forth to Wildside to get live prey.
Posted in Updates
Leave a comment
Feeding Day
Fed Alice 6 large mice today. I wanted to see if I could get her to go for a live rat pup however Wildside was out of them today. The thought is if I can get her interested in the rat pups, maybe I could get her to go back to eating the frozen/thawed rats in a more appropriate size for her. Anyway she seems content with the mice she just ate.
Posted in Updates
Leave a comment
5 White Snacks
Fed Alice 5 large mice today. She could have eat more however that is all I had other than rats. This was just less stressful than trying to get her to eat the rats I have been offering her.
Posted in Updates
Leave a comment