#pantherophis guttatus

Nothing major, I don’t think, but we’re going to the vet today (several hours away but that’s the closest one in rural hell) to get him checked out and do a fecal float. The nature of his illness pertains to the contents of his stool, but trust me friends, you do not want details. 

I’ll post an update when I get home.

Ivo: Is not going to hesitate to take the food. Use 24″ hemostats in case she misses. (She has missed before and bitten the tongs, realized that’s not the rat, and gone back of her own accord to find the rat. Be safe!)

Newdle (Working Title): Is cautiously investigative of the food. Hisses a lot at all things. Once he realizes that food is present, he will gently take the food from the tongs.

Matilda: I used to have to set her food in her enclosure and wait for her to find it, but now she’ll feed from tongs! She’s a very dependable eater.

Shoelace™: Has already become aware that there is food in the area, and is standing at the top of the enclosure waiting for you to open the door and give her the food. INCREDIBLY FOOD MOTIVATED. Not too strikey though, thankfully. Holds her food and waits until you’re done feeding the other snakes before actually eating it, so I often feed her last. When she’s done eating, she cruises around looking for more food no matter HOW big her meal was… please calm down???

Neku: Generally a reliable feeder. Usually drags the food back into his favorite tube to eat in solitude. (Solitube…)

Joshua: Is scared of all food over a certain size………. can be a problem feeder. Often mock-strikes to try and make the food go away. Once he actually bites it and realizes that it is, in fact, food, you’re usually good to go…

Lucy: Is there, waiting for the food from out of a hide, blep blep i’m heckin hunger. Has an insane strike when she takes her food, often prompts calls of “that’s my girl!” 

Worm: Does not feed from tongs. I have to lay her food under a hide and wait for her to find them. I put the food in the same place every time, so she usually does! She’s going to go off food soon, she doesn’t eat during the winter.

Orange Juice: …I often have to unbury her head and tap her with the food for her to know it’s there… she usually finds it on her own when I leave it in there, but other times she just misses a week of food, and I hate that, so I just… present her with the food. She’s doing her best…

Facts About the Shoelace™ ^{(pantherophis guttatus)}

• The Shoelace™ is a Corn Snake with a very complex series of genes. Specifically, she is a 100% Het Amelanistic Anerythristic Hypo Strawberry Ultramel Corn Snake, and an F1 outcross of the Tequila Sunrise morph lineage. In order, this means quite a few things. The first is that she carries the Amelanistic gene, but is heterozygous for it, meaning that she doesn’t visually show it on her body. The next is that she visually expresses the Anerythristic gene. Antherythristic removes red/orange colors from the snake who carries it, leaving behind grey, brown, and black (usually.) The next genes is Hypomelanism, which in corn snakes reduces overall melanin (the stuff that gives skin, hair, scales, and other things their coloration) expression, which, in turn, thins out the border around patterns on the snake, and can lighten up the typical checkerboard stomach pattern shown in most corn snakes. The gene following that is Strawberry, which further reduces melanin content, but doesn’t act on red – hence the name. Ultramel is the last gene in this list, and it is a gene with a lot of history and discussion in the hobby as to where it originated from. Ultramel also reduces melanin, and lightens dark colors in the animal who expresses it. What all of this means for the Shoelace™ is that she becomes a pale pinkish snake with some yellow on her front half, a pale belly and soft patterns down her sides. She’s a very pretty girl!

• Adding onto that, F1 refers to the number of generations away from a specific bloodline, and Tequila Sunrise is a name given to a specific gene combination that produces the corn snake morph of light-color pale pink-white snakes.

• The Shoelace™ is about two years old, and around 3ft (1m) long – but growing rapidly, and putting on more weight by the week. She’s going to be a big girl! For a corn snake.

• The Shoelace™ is very fast and active, and troublesome to hold onto – but handling her is good for her future in case I need to examine her and when it’s cleaning day, so she is held in spite of her attempts to escape. Eventually she settles down… but sometimes she musks me first.

• You don’t want to know what musk is.

• One way to make it up to her is by letting her climb around on things once she’s out. The Shoelace™ loves to climb, and she’s happiest when exploring something new and interesting that she can weave her body around.

• Due to her flighty nature, the Shoelace™, like Worm, has never seen grass, and with the way things are shaping up, she probably never will.

Ask me a question about Ivo here, and I can add it to this list!

Once you pick him up he’s gentle as a lamb.

Facts About Neku ^{(pantherophis guttatus)}

• Neku is a Corn Snake, specifically, an Amelanistic Tessara Corn Snake – which is a fancy way of saying that he’s mostly red and he has a stripe pattern. Other than that, he’s basicaly an ordinary corn snake!

• Neku is about 4 years old, about 5 feet (1.6m) long, and weighs a little over 2 pounds.

• Neku loves tubes. He has a large PVC pipe to hide in, and he does so for much of the day. It is the only thing in the world that brings joy to his tortured soul.

• Neku came to me in poor heath, with a respiratory infection that required antibiotic injections every other day for two weeks to finally clear up. He’s doing much better now, though, and thankfully due to keeping him quarantined on the other side of the house, his infection never spread to anyone else.

• Neku hisses at everything. Secretly, he’s a big scaredy-cat.

• Neku, ike Joshua, takes his name from the Square Enix title The World Ends With You..

Ask me a question about Neku here, and I can add it to this list!

Facts About Joshua ^{(pantherophis guttatus)}

• Joshua is a Snow Corn Snake. Specifically, that means he’s a Corn Snake that visually shows both the Amelanistic, and the Anerythristic traits. Other than being a strikingly colored snake, he’s no different from the average corn snake! Like many native species, Corn Snakes have laws governing whether or not they can be kept depending on where you live – and in their case, it can come down to the specific morph of the snake in question. Check your local laws, folks!

• Joshua is about 4ft (1.3m) long, about three years old, and weighs around 2 pounds.

• Joshua often buzzes the tip of his tail against the bottom of his enclosure to try and make me think he’s a rattlesnake and threaten me into going away. Results are mixed, and mostly consist of me rolling my eyes at his theatrics.

• Joshua has the nice trait of sitting still for longer than 1/5th of a second, a rarity in Corn Snakes. He likes to wrap around objects… and stay there. It makes him very photogenic!

• When not ruining his home or my life, Joshua can most likely be found hiding underneath of an upside-down flower pot in his home. Snakes like to fit snugly into their hidey-holes, and this one is the snuggest of all! When I catch him in the bowl, I refer to him as a bowl of pasta.

• When Joshua came here, he had mites. Mites are parasites in the arachnid family that can spread disease between reptiles, and are basically the snake equivalent of the devil. They, along with viral illness and disease risk, are one of the main reasons why it’s good husbandry to quarantine any new animal you bring into your home before putting them near your other pets. Once the mite situation was cleared up, Joshua lived in quarantine for another 5 months to make sure they were gone and he had no other problems. Long-term qurantine is better than future regret!

• Joshua is named after a character from the NDS game The World Ends With You! ^{(Which I recommend everyone on earth play because it’s fantastic!)}

Ask me a question about Joshua here, and I can add it to this list!

just fed the shoelace™

she’s looking for more food

at times like this, i am reminded of the fact that snakes are like those benthic-dwelling sea sponges that only exist to absorb food into their tubelike expandable membranes that are 90% stomach 9% reproductive organs and 1% a cognizant will to exist

thanks to the Shoelace™ for always going to the bathroom in the same exact corner of her enclosure it makes for easy spot cleaning and i appreciate the simple things in life

TL;DR pinworms

We can treat this. We’re good. It’s gross. But I will survive, and more importantly, so will he.

blessed be the shoelace™ for always going to the bathroom in the same corner of her enclosure, thank you for this gift of convenient spot cleaning oh kind and merciful shoelace™, yours is the only order in a truly unjust and chaotic world

baby girl

Partner sent me this picture this morning. Apparently our boy has the zoomies today.

a criminal, caught planning his escape

what crimes will he commit