Alice the Bullsnake

Just found Alice curled up inside the large Rock Cave. This is the first time I have really seen her use it since I put it in her habitat a few weeks ago.

She still has a tendency to rattle her tail when being handled. The funny thing is that she smells of my hand and crawls up my arm whenever I take her out to handle her. That combined with an audible exhale from time to time does keep me alert while handling her. I understand snakes can be more temperamental when they are hungry. Her body weight looks good and so does her activity level. The Repticon event will be close to me next weekend. I hope to see the breeder there and see if I need to change what I am currently doing.

The large and extra large Reptile Caves arrived today. I had already put Alice back in her habitat after feeding her and she was already hiding out in her Rock Outcroppings. I put the large one in her habitat after washing it. She will start moving around again in two or three days and I hope to see her checking it out. At right around one year old, she is a little over three foot long and the large hide looks like it should suit her fine.

Alice has stayed pretty much on an every six weeks shed cycle since I got her. She will be one year old in August. She shed last night in her hide box. In fact, three of the four times she has shed have been inside a hide. I have only found one skin in plain view. She has several nice objects to rub against in her habitat. How she manages to shed inside of her hide, I do not know.

In studying up on Bull Snakes, I had read that they like to burrow in their substrate. When I first set up Alice’s habitat, I used one 8qt bag of aspen shavings. I thought it looked nice and would give her enough to dig around in. This is a 4′ x 2′ habitat and that provided a little less than one inch of depth to the substrate. The package of aspen shavings (Zoo Med) suggests a depth of two inches or more. When I disinfected her habitat last week, I decided to try using a thicker layer of substrate to see if Alice would enjoy it. I used 2.5  of the 8qt. bags of aspen shavings this time. She ended up with a full two inch depth to the substrate throughout the habitat. She has tunneled all over the place. Obviously way more interesting to her than the thinner layer.

I also bought Alice a new hide to replace one of her hides she rarely uses. Her favorite is a large Exo Terra Rock Outcroppings. I bought a medium Exo Terra Reptile Cave thinking it would be cozy for her at her close to three foot in length and that she would like it. I seem to have missed the mark on the size and her preferences. From her lack of interest in it, I would say that Bull Snakes, or at least Alice, prefer a roomier hide to curl up in. Her Rock Outcroppings that she likes so much is a large size and has plenty of room for her to move around in. I will look into getting a large or extra large Reptile Cave to replace this one.

I mentioned before that Alice knew the routine for feeding and crawls over to the side of the bin I feed her from when I start to open it. Today, I was a little slower getting the mouse to her due to company being in the house. When I opened the bin to feed her, she was right there. Alice was frantically sniffing around and searching for the mouse. I thought she was going to come out of the bin looking for her dinner. By waving it around beside her I caught her attention and she promptly grabbed the previously frozen dinner and coiled around it. She will be a year old in a month or two. I feel sure she will have reached three feet in length by that time. I have read that they often reach six feet in length at two years of ago. Awesome.

I have kept Alice on medium size mice since I got her. At close to 3ft in length now I have decided its time for larger sized meals. Later today I will see how well she handles a large mouse. It is also the first white mouse I have tried to feed her. I searched through the selection of Arctic Mice that Petsmart had and white was all that was left. Based on her good eating habits of the past I am thinking color will not be an issue.

Up until last night, I had really been the only one to handle Alice since I brought her home. I let my son handle her once and she rattled her tail while he was holding her. It scared him so much he almost dropped her. I only have two or three days a week that I can handler her and as a result it has taken longer to calm her down. I will still get an occasional tail rattle when I get her out of hiding to pick her up, however she has never tried to bite. They all have their own demeanor, and hers is “bitchy”.

Last night was a nice breakthrough though. I got Alice out to handle her a little while. I recieved a little tail rattle before I picker her up. In her defense, one of my hands was above her and that likely caused the reaction. Anyway, once I picked her up, I went into the room where my wife and her daughter were playing games. They both wanted to try to handle Alice.

She rattled her tail once when my wife started to rub her side. After that she did fine. They could stroke her body and she did not even twitch or pull away. After a while both of them had a chance to hold her while she crawled through their fingers and up their arms. I hope to see her tame down enough that anyone can remove her from her habitat without any kind of defensive display.

I have read more than once about snakes lack of intelligence. I do not believe this to be true. They usually site the cases that a snake uninterested in food became the dinner of the prey item. Pointing out that a captive snake will just lay there and not do anything while a live rat or mouse chews away on it. I do not believe this would happen in the wild to a healthy snake. Captivity is bound to change any animals behavior.

I have seen intelligent behavior in more than one captive snake. Alice has surprised me in that she has picked up on the feeding routine so well that I might have to change the routine to keep it fresh. I have a storage bin that I put her in to feed her. It has a hide box at one end. I will put her in the bin and guide her towards the hide box where she will curl up inside and wait. I then get the pre-killed mouse ready and remove the top of the bin. Using tongs, I will drag the mouse around to stir up the prey drive. Once she grabs it, I close the lid and leave her alone for an hour or two. After eating, she will go back inside the hide box. To transfer her back to her cage, I cover the entrance to the hide box and pick it up and place it back in her enclosure. This makes the transfer back easy on her after she has eaten.

With each feeding, she seemed to be more in tune with the process. She started to keep more of her body outside the hide box waiting for her dinner and coming towards it as soon as I placed the food item in the bin. On the eighth feeding, she crawled to the side of the bin I open to put the mouse in as soon as I started to remove the top. I barely had the mouse in the opening before she snatched it out of the tongs. This I believe is a learned behavior. They may have a small brain cavity, however they are quite capable of storing and using more than just basic survival skills.