I'm just starting this new blog of mine and trying to figure everything out, so do forgive me...
Basically, the reason why I'm starting up is my will to write. And since I've absolutely no social life, I don't think i can write about the daily happenings in my life. So what better to write about than my wee collection?

Basically, the human habitants of our household are myself, my boyfriend L and the flatmate, B. It's a small 2-bed flat somewhere in Scotland, and we've basically dedicated our bedroom to the random vivs and boxes our wee babies need.

Basically, as you can read on the left, we've got 7 snakes at the moment. Which is a fair amount considering that we're only just started.. :) Basically, what's happened was... L got his first snake about a year ago (the kingsnake). Waltie's a big girl now, ready for breeding and gagging for a shag. Basically, if you don't know what an albino cali king looks like, it's like a big worm, sorta pinky-white & banana yellow striped with red eyes. Devil's spawn, I call it. Looks evil as muck and tries to strike when you try to get it out, but is nice as ever when it's actually out. So yeah, that's L's first snake. Then he got the monster...

Next thing L bought, was a boa constrictor. He called it Lincon and it ended up being a female. Funny that. Basically, boas grow up to 12 ft and thick as fuck. Females grow a heck of a lot bigger than the males. How lucky are we that all 3 of his boas turned out to be females. Yey. Lincon is orangey colour and has normal markings (for a boa). The debate is whether she's a pastel or a salmon. I don't personally like this one, I think it's because it's so bloody big. And it's slow and docile. A boring git. But L think it's amazing. I'm just really not a boa type girl.

Lincon's sister/brother (probed twice:1st male, 2nd female. Body shape looks that of a male for now.)is snakesy (named by me. I'm seriously not good at naming snakes and they end up with stupid names like snakesy and nippy.. :) ). The poor thing was mistreated for the first 6 months of his/her life, and was close to the golden gates when L rescued the ickle thing. It's doing fine now, and is a great feeder: It's on medium rats, and can eat 3 in a feed. It can be a bit nippy at times, so one has to be careful when handling, but it's generally an alright snake. My absolute favorite of the three.

My first meeting with these 3 wormies was 6 months ago when I started seeing L. The first time I went round his, he just sorta chucked the snakes on top of me. To be honest, I don't remember how I reacted, but I can imagine I practically shat myself. And to think that they were so much smaller then...

The next snake acquired was samson, yet another boa. Now, he's just a baby, about 5 months old (?). He was sold as a male but our first probe would indicate it's a female. This one I absolutely hate. It's just such a nippy little bastard. AND of course it has to be the one to get problems. First it got mites (which we're still not sure whether we've got rid of them. Now it's developed an another problem, at the moment we're presuming it's scale rot it's got but we cannot be sure. Generally scale rot (when noticed at early stages of the disease) will dissapear after a shed or two with the appropriate care. Samson's coming up to a shed so we'll give it a few weeks and if nothing changes, I think it's time to go to the vet.. So yeah, you try to rub sudocrem and vaseline on a snake that's constantly striking at you. Not so fun.

Anyways, that's all his snakes. My snakes are the newest additions to the family. The first wormie I got was a Sinaloan milksnake, Bob. Funnily enough, I didn't name him. It was R who came up with it. :) Basically, Bob's just a baby. It's somewhere around 16 weeks old and a complete worm still. The petshop we bought it from sold it as a male, saying it had been genetically tested. Whether it's true or not, we don't know. The fact is that bob's still too ickle to be probed so meanwhile we're just treating it as a male. Bob's an absolute monster when it comes to feeding. Last feed it ate a fluffy and three pinkies in one go, took him less than five minutes to destroy them all. And this is WHILE he's shedding. He's all white-ish grey now and blind, so I'm giving him a break from cuddling. He's the baby of the group but he's not my favorite. I think I don't give him enough attention, poor boy.

There was a Baird's ratsnake that I bought two days after I bought Bob. But I got it to feed only twice in a month (one small rat at a time), and sadly, it passed away exactly a month after I bought it. It must've been ill, we presume. Thankfully, the reptile shop replaced my dead baby (I absolutely loved that snake and was GUTTED when it went and died on me...) with another one, NipNip. Now, Nip Nip's a female Baird's ratsnake, about 2 years old, and already has been used for breeding. She was the female that the shop owner had used for breeding so at least I know that babies should be in the picture. :) NipNip's in the middle of a shed at the moment so there's no handling it. It's blind as a bat and cranky as hell. Surely you would be in its situation as well!

NipNip needed a buddy because it was used to being in a viv with two rat x corns, so I tried to hunt around for an another Baird's ratsnake. The search seemed to be hopeless, since Scotland is shite (excuse my French) for getting snakes (apart from boas), and I don't really have a chance to go down south to get my snakes. But one day we happened to be at the reptile shop (where we got NipNip from) and talking about my search for another Baird's. The owner happened to have one she wanted to get rid of. So that's how I ended up with Nickle! Nickle's meant to be three years old (which I'm still a little doubtful of but in the end, who cares?!), so it should be ready for breeding. I've only had it for three weeks and fed it once (on the day I got it: four small mice in one feed. My ratsnakes only eat fortnightly so I tried feeding it last week, but it was in the middle of a shed so no feed that week. Another try next tuesday!), but it seems to be a good feeder.

The personalities of both of my ratsnakes are absolutely amazing. They love handling (apart from when they're shedding), and they're sociable up to the point when they'll glide along the glass doors of the tank in order to get handled. Au contraire to the general ratsnake nature, they're not nippy at all; I've not got bitten once.

So, that's what we've got. There's a huge list of snakes that we're looking into. L is wanting a Brazilian Rainbow Boa, and is saying that if he does get it, that's him done; he won't be getting any more snakes. Bullshit, say I. Me on the other hand, I know I'm hooked. I shall be getting a red bamboo ratsnake, an everglades ratsnake, a Vietnamese Red Tailed Racer, a mandarin ratsnake and a Rein snake. The only thing about the last three are that they are for advanced keepers only. I wouldn't want to put my snakes in danger because I just didn't know enough. So I'll wait till L finally gets to move into his flat and then I'll start expanding. Obviously, keeping the two ratsnakes together at the moment means that eventually I shall be getting babies. Getting an incubator's going to be costly business, but it'll hopefully be worth it.

Anyway, that's it for now. It's time to go scrub the evil boa clean, and then check whether NipNip's shed. I think it'll shed either tonight or tomorrow. Hopefully as soon as, cos me wants to play... :)

xx