Alice shed the first time when I had only had her 3 weeks. She shed the second time 6 weeks after that. She is close to 2.5 feet long at 8 months of age. I have never owned a snake before at this growth stage. I understand they are around 12 to 18 inches long at birth and average doubling their birth length at 1 year of age.
The beginning
I didn’t plan to buy a snake that day. There was a Repticon event in town and I wanted to go to it to collect information and to plan for a future purchase. I looked around at various vendors to see what I would need to spend in order to set the cage up right. I was also seeing a large number of pythons and boas there. Snakes native to North America were in short supply. After handling a young Black Pine Snake, I was pointed over to a guy that had some Bullsnakes. I had wanted a Gopher Snake and decided to take a look. When I saw this bullsnake, I was afraid to walk away fearing that someone else would buy her. I called my wife and told her that in spite of not planning to buy a snake today, I had found exactly what I wanted.
The vendors there had completely sold out of aspen bedding. I managed to find a rock outcrop by Exoterra and a heat mat and bought those. I had put a deposit down on the bullsnake and went back by the vendor to pick her up. On the way home I stopped at PetsMart and bought the aspen bedding. When I got home, I drilled a hole for the heat mat power and got the cage set up as quickly as possible. I removed the Bullsnake from her comtainer and placed her in her new home.