Category: snakes

Staying Out Late

Timothy Price37 Comments

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This is a really cute baby Coachwhip Snake (Masticophis flagellum) that Marble brought inside and presented to us on Saturday. The morning temperatures have been freezing  down to the mid teens in the mornings, but the high was around 70º F on Saturday afternoon; therefore, I guess this little guy was out trying to find another meal before hibernating, or Marble was scratching around in the mulch and found the snake. Lizards and snakes like to burrow into the mulch when it’s cold outside. The mulch is warm campared to the outside temperatures because of the composting action. You can see a photo of steam rising from one of our mulch piles on a cold morning at https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/9/bright-night-cool-steamy-morning. You can also see photos of a pair of adult Coachwhip Snakes in their mating ritual at https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2017/5/snakes-in-love. And lastly, you can see Spunk’s reaction to a Coachwhip Snake at https://wp.me/s1yQyy-snake.

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Now What’s on the Tele?

Timothy Price32 Comments

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Laurie saw this cute Western Hognose Snake in the bedroom, and called me in to catch it. I presume Sasha brought it inside since she was in the bedroom when Laurie saw the snake. It showed no bite marks or other signs of injuries.

When Sasha brings lizards in the house, they are rarely injured. She is very gentle with the critters she catches. Likewise, when Silver catches bunnies and gophers, he carries them like a mama kitty carries kittens. He often brings his catches inside, so I end up chasing bunnies and gophers all over the house before I get them out.

Mr. Hognose was very calm, felt right at home, and he was very cooperative doing a photo shoot on the Train Tele. If you missed the original “What’s on the Tele?” post, you can see it at https://wp.me/p1yQyy-4BG.

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Bye Bye Blue

Timothy Price21 Comments

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Blue, our 19 year old boa constrictor, who is soon to turn 20, has flown the coup, so to speak. She moved out of our house, and moved in with Tristan. Blue will be happy at Tristan’s because she will get more attention now. I’m not supposed to handle reptiles because of my compromised immune system; therefore, I only handled Blue to get her out of her cage to feed her and clean her cage; and most of the handling was with a snake stick. She is a family snake and has lived with Tristan before.

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Blue checking out her cage to make sure everything was in order.

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Snakes Alive

Timothy Price7 Comments

Before I started chemo in July 2010, I had to give up my boa constrictor and blood python, because my immune system would be destroyed by the treatments and since snakes carry salmonella, there was the chance of catching it from them.  Tristan and David took both snakes for me. They had been eyeing the boa for awhile, so this was their chance to get her, but the python had to be part of the deal.  Both snakes were quite large when they took them, but the boa has grown a lot over the past year and a half, so I ordered them a new, large cage. The cage came in last week, but I hadn’t seen the snakes in it until tonight.

I got the python, whom we named Red, in 2003, and the boa, whom we named Blue, a few months later. The python was 22″ long and very sick when I got her. We ended up force feeding her and I had to rent a nebulizer to administer antibiotics for a respiratory infection she had, because neither the injections or oral antibiotics were working (giving a snake shots and oral medications is quite difficult, besides).  I had to get a prescription for the nebulizer, and the medical supply place we rented it from didn’t quite know how to handle renting a nebulizer that wasn’t paid for by insurance. The people I dealt with ended up having a great laugh and a nice change to their normal routine to fill a prescription for a snake. They gave us great service and even delivered the nebulizer and picked up when we were done with it. The nebulizer was much easier to use than giving Red shots and oral meds. I cut a hole in the top of a plastic sweater box, put Red in the box, and inserted the nebulizer’s tube into the hole in the box. Red had no choice but to inhale the vaporized antibiotics for 30 minutes every day. The tube feeding and nebulizing worked and Red is now over 7 feet long and weights about 50 pounds.

Blue was a newborn about 10″ long when we got her. She’s now 9 feet long and weighs 15 to 20 pounds, I would guess. She still isn’t really sure about the new cage. I had to put her on the wood for the photo. She didn’t stay on it long as she wanted to get back in her hide box.

The lead photo is of Ghost, one of Tristan’s two ball pythons. Both ball pythons are beautiful, but Ghost chose to pose for me, while the other one crawled into a hiding spot.