First feeding witnessed

I fed Lacey today as it has been a week since her last feed.  She has yet to poop, so I am curious about that as I thought it was a kind of weekly thing.  1 weekly feed equals 1 weekly poop.  I’ll do some more research and ask some more knowledgeable folk than myself.

I was absolutely thrilled today with how the feeding went.  Last week I didn’t get to see anything as Lacey didn’t strike at her food.  Instead she snuck in the consumption of her meal while I was out of the room, after I had left it in her enclosure for her.  Today on the other hand, not only did she strike and consume two pinky mice, I was able to catch the consumption of the first one on my phone.  The footage is below.  It runs for about 5 minutes and depicts the whole process after she has secured the mouse in the correct position.  The images appear a little ‘foggy’ as they are taken from outside her enclosure.

It is not particularly graphic or anything, but, if you are squeamish at the thought of watching a snake consume a whole baby mouse (frozen to being with, not live) then avoid watching.  Personally, I found it fascinating to watch live something that I had previously only seen on a screen.

I am going to show the footage to again some people more knowledgeable than myself, with a view to understanding if I am feeding Lacey the right sized food.  While it looks like she has to stretch quite a bit to consume her meal her, she actually ate another one about 10 minutes after this.  The second one was consumed much faster than this one.  I just want some reassurance that I am giving her the right amount and size of food.

What an awesome day!

Lacey eating a pinky mouse

It’s feeding time!

Today I had my first go at feeding Lacey.  I have been concerned about it as baby pythons have some renown as being easily turned off their food by stress.  If that is the case you can end up having to force feed them.  That is not something that I have liked thinking about.  So I have taken a somewhat cautious approach since Lacey came home.

I have left Lacey alone in her enclosure, doing nothing more than look at her since she came home on Saturday.   The hope was that she would take food when offered at roughly a week since the last feed she took based on the record I was provided.  Today was 6 days since that date and I could wait no longer!  I offered her two pinkie mice using tweezers.  I was very encouraged that she was very interested in the food and poised in a striking pose, testing the scent of the mice when held and jiggled in front of her.  Unfortunately she did not strike.

The good news is however, that she did eat both mice!  I left them in the enclosure and she took and consumed them in her own time.  The bad bit about it is that I didn’t get to witness either event.  The first one I was in the kitchen preparing my lunch.  The second one was after I had gone back to work after lunch.  Shattered.  Plenty of time to see it in the future.  But, I am desperate to see it happen first hand.

Tonight when I got home I was very pleased to see the second bulge in her tummy indicating that she had in fact eaten the second mouse offered.  She was beautifully curled up at the warm end of the enclosure grabbing some toasty temperatures to help with digestion of her meal.  I took the opportunity to handle her for the first time since I transferred her into the enclosure on Saturday.  The plan is to handle her for short periods initially and build up over time so as to avoid stress and putting her off her food.  The photo above was a quick snap taken on my phone while I had her out briefly.  Loving every minute so far!

Welcome Lacey!

Yesterday, I brought home our baby Diamond Python (Morelia spilota spilota).  Excited does not cover it properly.  I had a grin from ear to ear from the moment Peter (from Reptiles Inc.) was showing me a choice of pythons from which to pick, to when I handled him\her on my own for the first time when I put her in the enclosure that I built for her.  I’ve had the same grin pretty much ever since whenever I think about her, or glance over and see her out and about.

As you can see, I have added a little picture of Lacey that I snapped quickly earlier today.  I am letting her settle for the next few days before trying to handle or feed her to minimise stress as much as possible.  If she is too stressed, she will go off her food and that will be problematic.  I don’t want to have to learn how to force feed her.

You may have noticed that I am calling her Lacey and well, her.  I don’t know the sex of Lacey yet, but, she is about the size of a shoelace at the moment so that is where we got her name from  at least.  I am taking a punt on calling Lacey a girl.  I will correct that in the even that it turns out to be wrong.  When she is more settled I will take her back to get some help with sexing her.

Interestingly, baby Diamond Pythons look very little like what they will when they are grown up in terms of their colouration.  Lacey is a sort of motely brown colour if anything at the moment.  She will grow up to be black, white and yellow in the main.  The spots you see will turn a combination of white and yellow and her dark scales will turn black.  They are a beautiful snake as adults.  In my opinion at least.  Diamond and Green Tree Pythons are my favourite snakes.  I hope to have at least one Green Tree Python one day.

For now, I am ecstatic that Lacey is home with us!  I will of course be making changes to the site to reflect that we are now owners of Dragons and Serpents!

Licensed to thrill!

I got a phone call yesterday.  It was the licensing authorities ringing to clarify something on my reptile keeping license application.  The fantastic news is that it was also made clear that my application had been approved.  Stoked about that!

Apparently I had made a mistake on the form.  I wasn’t aware that snakes can only be sold by individuals, not shops.  I had put down that I was going to purchase the snake from Reptiles Inc. rather than from Peter, who runs the store directly.  I now understand the difference and will be buying from Peter rather than his store and record that on my records to ensure compliance.  Interesting to know that now too.

I have started making preparations for my diamond python’s arrival.  Today I converted a plastic tub into a home for it in the style of what I understand goes by the handle of a ‘click clack’.

  You can see the makings of it here.  I have a 20 litre plastic tub with two pieces of dowel criss-crossing it to allow for the pythons semi-arboreal nature.

I also have put in some paper towel for substrate, a terracotta dish for water and a ceramic tile as a heat holding basking spot.  I will place a heat mat under about a third of the container where the tile is to provide an appropriate temperature at that end and allow for cooler temperatures at the other end.

You can see in this next picture that I have cut a hole in the lid of the container and glued in plastic flyscreen mesh to allow for ventilation.  Common practice from what I have seen is to also

make some holes at different points of the container to allow for better air flow.  I have also put in a thermometer as you can see here.

You may also make out a screw holding the dowel in place.  This was a little tip I picked up in a forum thread on the Aussie Pythons & Snakes site.  The thread was most informative and I used the material in that thread to create this enclosure for our impending arrival.

Testing of temperatures in the setup tonight has seen some pleasing results.  I seem to be able to get 32-34 degrees at the hot end and 20-22 at the cool end consistently.  I would like to work it out so that it was 30-32 at the warmest point, so I have a little tweaking to do.  Diamond pythons are cold climate snakes and are probably the best snake for me to start with in regards to tolerance of our climate in Canberra.  Over the next few days, I will be working on the best ways to get the temperature right.  I have a few ideas that I am working on.  The most likely scenario is to get a thermostat to ensure things are spot on.

Exciting times are they not!?  I’ll have to do something about the banner at the top of the page.  This is becoming more than our Dragon Journal in a hurry.