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44243
New to this forum and wanted to tell my story and ask for advice from you crazy herpowners. I have kept snakes off and on since I was 8 or 9. My first snake was a ball python which died about a year ago from (i think) it's heat rock. I found out from my sister (a schoolteacher) about a fellow 4th grade teacher having a boa that she could no longer keep. She told me this and my eyes sparkled. The only background that my sister had on the snake was that the teacher had aquired the snake from a biology teacher at the high school. The teacher said that the biology teacher promised to come to the intermediate school to feed and maintain the snake and its 55gal. tank. The biology teacher became slack in his responsibilty and the 4th grade teacher could not bring herself to feed the snake. So, the next day my sister takes my truck to school and brings home the snake and its cage here to me. The snake as I got it was very thin and had the skin rolls.....very unhealthy. I went to the local store and bought 4 small mice. I put the snake in the rubbermaid container and one by one the snake gobbled up the freshly killed mice. About 5 days later the snake went into a patchy shed which I helped by soaking and rubbing. I waited another two days and fed the snake another 3 mice. It is now starting to fatten up and look well. Here are my problems:
1) I am using a substrate called naturebark...for reptiles...good?
2) Went to walmart and bought a heating pad which I set on medium, but then came back the next day and decided that medium was not enough. Is high too much? I think it is not enough because the pad itself is not touching the glass. Should I tape the pad to the glass bottom and set on medium?
Bought a huge rock water pool which is big enough for soaking. Hopefully this will up the humidity and ease the shedding problem.
3) There is a piece of shed about 3 inches long on the head~neck area which will not fall off....I have soaked and rubbed...but the snake does not agree with me touching its head area.
Should I hold off feeding and start it on a regular sched (btw, I decided to start with rats from now on), or should I keep trying to fatten it up. My dad says (no expert), a snake which is used to eating every other month, shouldnt be fed multiple meals once a week.
Any help, comments will be greatly appreciated. I plan on getting the snake back to health and stopping by the intermediate school and showing the kids and teacher the healthy snake.
Jason Rockhill
[addsig]
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