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Kalleigh Greatballzofire Kalleigh Kalleigh Greatballzofire Kalleigh Greatballzofire JackAsp Kalleigh JackAsp Kalleigh JackAsp |
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Kalleigh View Profile |
My new gopher snake....
On the hot side i have a 75 watt UV heating bulb in the day and a 75 watt infrared heating bulb in the night, i have only sand on this side and large rocks under the tank there is a small heating pad. I have one cave for him placed in the middle He is a very happy healthy snake, he s very active and is all over his tank. I feed him two small thawed out pinky mice a week. Anyways on to my questions.....Ive had him for two months and he has been great i hold him almost every day to keep him tame but recently when i go to grab him to pick him up he hisses at me. when i pick him up he s fine. i am confused tho because this just started. another thing, he doesn’t burrow i tried bark i tried sand both bags said it encourages natural burrowing behavior, but he doesn’t even try to. I just switched his tank from a 5.5 gallon to a 50 gallon but now there aren’t as many hiding spots and the placement of the tank is different and waay more open. how do i tell if he s stressed out? i tried to get answers on another sight but i never get people who actually have gopher snakes answering. and gopher snakes are very different from many other snakes. so i just hope i can get some clarity here. thank you
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| 09/02/09 04:58pm |
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Greatballzofire View Profile |
Message To: Kalleigh In reference to Message Id: 2066771 My new gopher snake....
Here is my Gomez today, not wanting her picture taken! LOL!:
She is a wc 08 found this April in the Sierra Nevada Foothills hiding under a sheet of plywood with a hungry feral cat on top, so I count her as a rescue. She ate a batch of live pinkies the very day I brought her home:
. She lives in a 105 quart Sterilite tub like this:
She has deep aspen which she likes to burrow in, a moist sphagnum moss hide (the thing with her tail end hanging out of in the first photo), and a cake pan full of moss with her water bowl in it. Her hides are covered with cardboard flats to give her a sense of privacy and security. She has a heat mat on one end. I do tubs so I can move them out onto the porch on sunny days for a little filtered sunlight. They like that. I share this with you to let you know I too have a wc gopher snake. Also have 3 other cb Pacifics. Your snake might like more hiding spots, and deeper substrate, preferably aspen. Sand is not that good as it is hard to clean and they can swallow it and have problems. Also it is heavy, which would not work with my portable setups. Maybe you could post a photo of the 50 gallon tank for suggestions on what he might like. |
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| 09/02/09 07:22pm |
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Kalleigh View Profile |
Message To: Greatballzofire In reference to Message Id: 2066836 My new gopher snake....
I have read every care sheet on the Internet it seems like lol. i think I’m doing quite well with him...i think its a boy, i heard you can tell by the length of the tail. i know its a long shot but ill take a picture of its tail tonight and ma bey you could have a look and see if it looks like Gomez’s. I will also take a pic of the tank , its weird the pet store i go to has barely any types of substrate to pick from and i picked the one that says desert terrain because i caught him from the desert. my opinion is that its OK to catch snakes from the wild as long as we take good care of them and learn what they need to be happy pets. Its dangerous out there for baby gopher snakes. Plus when they are just babies they adapt much better, i dont know if i would have felt right about keeping a 5 footer. Yours is quite small too from the looks of it , how old do you think she is? Mine actually ate thawed out frozen pinkies from the first week i got him, they are very good eaters i hear, because i had no problem at all feeding him, he just lunged right away and ate it. One thing I’m thinking about doing is feeding him in a separate container, He started getting defensive when i go to pick him up and i heard that if he is fed in his tank(which he is) then he might think my hand is food and bite me. How fast do they grow? mine has shed once so far. I’m not sure if I’m feeding him enough, he seemed hungry after just one pinky so i just started giving him two, he takes them both happily. I dont see a lump anymore after just one day after eating. sorry i have so many questions , i read about them every day but its much nicer asking questions to a person who owns one also. ill grab the camera and take some more pics in a few mins thank you |
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| 09/02/09 09:03pm |
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Kalleigh View Profile |
Message To: Kalleigh In reference to Message Id: 2066883 My new gopher snake....
i took some pictures of its tail also...i think its actually a girl, i was looking at the tails of a male and fe male gopher snake and mines is quite small. if he s a girl I’m not sure what I’m gonna do cause i named him MJ(Micheal Jackson) ....long story. so yea I’m gonna keep the name either way lol. today when i picked him up he didn’t hiss and was fine....do snakes have bad days? because he was a jerk yesterday.
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| 09/02/09 10:49pm |
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Greatballzofire View Profile |
Message To: Kalleigh In reference to Message Id: 2066923 My new gopher snake....
She is sitting on a quart Glad container for size reference. I think she is a last summer’s hatchling. On May 2, ’09 she weighed 34.1 grams. On August 30, ’09 she weighed 118.3 grams. She has shed several times. She has a preference for multiple small meals; large pinks or fuzzies. She will refuse anything any bigger. I raise mice, too, so catering to her tastes is not a problem. I feed all my snakes in feeding containers. I put the snake in the feeding container, then add mice until they are full and stop eating. If the mice are fuzzies or smaller I feed live, if they can nip the snake I kill them first. I never feed them in their living quarters. When I first got Gomez I just assumed she was a he because until I know for sure the gender everything is a he. An experienced reptile keeper friend properly identified her, but by then it was too late to change her name. You think that is silly, I have another female gopher named Gonzo! |
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| 09/02/09 11:58pm |
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Kalleigh View Profile |
Message To: Greatballzofire In reference to Message Id: 2066958 My new gopher snake....
i think i might try doing what you do with feeding and giving him more mice untill he stops. i recently heard tho that wild caught gopher snakes will basically eat forver because they are used to going long periods without meals. i dont want any regurgitating going on lol. I buy my pinkies frozen from the pet store. I have been looking at pictures of different snakes and reading about them and i think that gophers are one of the best, they are active and are always doing something. i looked at pythons in the store and they just seem to sleep all the time(they have beautiful faces tho) Im not a fan of pine snakes i dont think there heads are as nicely shaped as bull snakes and gopher snakes. Im thinking of buying a corn snake tho. im really into having afew....its weird once i got this snake i just want more lol. I see that as quite a trend. One of the reasons i bring this up is because i notice you have a few gophers , did you buy most of yours? and why gophers? i love mine but there not common at pet stores around here and corn snakes are.....and pythons just seem so still . The ones ive seen never seem to move. do you have any other types of snakes? Can i house any other types of snakes with mine? i have another tank i could use if not. also i was holding MJ today and his skin is flaking a bit around his nose and under his chin....he shed around 2 weeks ago, is he getting ready to again? his eyes arent milky at all yet. lol i feel like a new mom...everything worries me. He doesnt seem much bigger and i heard they usually shed every month or so. I really wish i could get him/her sexed. i guess i could take him to the vets, is there an age that is best to get them sexed? ok well ill leave you with those 50 questions for now lol as you can see im very curios about this stuff |
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| 09/03/09 01:34am |
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Greatballzofire View Profile |
Message To: Kalleigh In reference to Message Id: 2066981 My new gopher snake....
Do not mix species. Corn snakes can be housed more than one to a large habitat, with plenty of hiding spots. Keep in mind although corn snakes are tiny little dudes when they are babies, they will grow into over three foot long adults and will need a decent size enclosure. You can take him/her to the vet and get it sexed and also take a fecal sample to be examined for parasites. The flaking skin around the head is odd. Usually the shed process starts with the snake’s scales looking dull and then the eyes cloud over, then everything clears up and the old skin is shed. There should not be flaking skin anywhere before blue. Could he be rubbing his face on something and abrading the skin? Be sure to give him a moist sphagnum moss hide; this really helps with the shed. He may have retained shed around his head. The shed should come off in one long complete piece. Look at the shed to make sure the spectacles (eye caps) have shed. If the snake is unable to access a humid spot to loosen the shed, the spectacles will sometimes stay stuck on. Never try to pull them off. You can put him on a small container with wet paper towels overnight to facilitate the shed. They start the removal of the old skin by snagging it on something rough, like a rock or branch, and crawling out of it just like a lady peels off a nylon stocking. I have purchased all my snakes except the Cali and Gomez. Those two are cat rescues. I prefer to buy my snakes from breeders, but will try to save wild ones in danger. I have a dozen western fence lizards which are saves from the cats, too. I keep temperate climate snakes, as keeping pythons and boas is more demanding what with providing a tropical type habitat. Also, I like pituophis. I like the feeding response and the appearance, and the personality. Link This link is about anatomy. You can see how big the snake’s stomach is. Mine eat until they are full, but I am careful to feed them mice no bigger than the biggest measurement around the snake’s girth, actually a little smaller. I feed about every 5 to 7 days. They eat, they digest, they poop, they build up an appetite, they feed again, and this process takes about a week. My pits will even eat while in blue, but the kings wont. |
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| 09/03/09 10:01am |
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JackAsp View Profile |
Message To: Greatballzofire In reference to Message Id: 2067072 My new gopher snake....
Althopugh aspen is the most affordable of the functional digging substrates, if this is your only snake I suggest a nice soft fluffy wood pulp of some kind (Carefresh, Healthy Pet, something of that nature) filled several inches deep with a heat pad under one end. Many will burrow actively in rougher materials like aspen, but the softer it is the more likely he is to make use of it. Plus, wood pulps, being softer than wood shavings, are flushable. Beats stinking up your watebasket every time you hve to spotclean a turd. Because it’s soft and absorbant, however, you’ll never be able to maintain good humidiy without soaking it, so the sphagnum hide is extra important. As long as you have both, though, you should have a happy snake. Dig a long diagonal hole with your finger at the warm end for him to explore, and once he figures out which end is warmer he’ll enlarge the tunnel himself. Or if you really want to baby him, bury a tube of some kind with just the ends exposed. Switch to just a fluorescent strip-light on top, so he still has a day/night cycle but is heating himself from the belly rather than from the back. His digestive system is what needs the most heat anyway. If the room gets cooler with seasonal changes, throw a towel or something over the top. Ever Pit I’ve had has eaten year-round with the setup I’m describing, and didn’t even spend muich time buried, because Pits are not actually a high-temperature snake. If the above-ground temp is in the 70’s, they’ll be up there keeping an eye on things whenever the light’s on anyway. |
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| 09/04/09 12:22am |
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Kalleigh View Profile |
Message To: JackAsp In reference to Message Id: 2067412 My new gopher snake....
his first shed was fine 2 big pieces and the eye caps came off i noticed. He sits in his water sometimes. He was very active for a little while but lately he is hiding alot more in the cool end of the tank. i set up a small hamster ball filled with pine shavings and put him in it to see if he burrowed...he stayed in for a bit but hasn’t gone in it again since. The dry skin is around his nose right in the front. i just changed his substrate to heat conducting sand and i have repti bark on the cool end....honestly those were the only two kinds the pet store had....could the sand be drying him out? I am kinda financially not able to buy to much right now because I’m not working....my job is very slow in the summer. so i didn’t get a chance to get a thermometer yet or the humidity tester. Could i use one from outside my house? I get so worried about him all the time, i watch his behavior constantly . He eats great, 2 pinkies once a week. i started feeding him in another tank, i put two on the ground and let him in....he took the first like that but would not take the second until i used my tweezers to pick the pinky up and feed it to him. How do i make a moss hide? put moss in his cave? id rather make another one tho because he loves his cave for sleeping in. once i start working again I’m going to buy him another cave for both ends...right now its right in the middle since i only had one. I put pics up of my tank...any suggestions? is the hamster ball full of pine good? should i put moss in it? i just bought the 20 dollar bag of sand the other day and then after found out its not recommended....what about potting soil, and how do i clean it? He is my first snake that I’m old enough to actually take care of and I’m trying very hard to make him happy, i swear i spend 10 hours a day looking up info...if there is any advice you could give i would love that. He seems healthy...if he had parasites or anything wouldn’t i be able to tell without taking him to the vet? i cant take him for another month. He eats well and poops every 4 days or so . some days hes so so active but other days he seems depressed or something...or is that just how snakes act? He has stopped hissing at me he only really did for a few days...I’m not sure why but he doesn’t at all anymore. he isn’t defensive in any way now. i try to hold him once a day, do you think that’s to much? i hold him for an hour or so. Should i be putting him in another container outside to play around in when its nice out? to give him exercise? thank you for your advice i really appreciate it. I’m new to this so I’m trying to learn as much as i can |
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| 09/04/09 08:59pm |
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JackAsp View Profile |
Message To: Kalleigh In reference to Message Id: 2067768 My new gopher snake....
Ditch the pine. Pine sawdust is midly toxic, and in a small glass container with no horizontal cross-breeze, "mildly" can mean "seriously." Almost all of their parasites are microscopic, so it’ll take a vet to be certain. But if he’s not showing symptoms, then a stool check is less of a financial priority than perfecting his home. I like to give each new animal a check, even if I don’t keep up on getting re-checks every single year, just so they’re in the system and if something odd happens down the road there are factors that can be ruled out. And, a couple of times there have been unpleasant surprises and I was glad problems were caught in time. Strip thermometers are better than nothing. I got by with them for decades. Humidity usually doesn’t matter with them, but soemtimes if a shed starts to go bad, the humid-hide will fix it. If he shed ok, he might continue to be fine without it. But it doesn’t hurt. All you need is a container with some moist sphagnum in it. The hamster ball would be fine. Some people just put a wad of it under a hide cave. I use an open-topped bin of it in my hognose tank, and she digs right under. Even deserts do have less dry areas, like under rocks. And there’s distance inthe wild, something cages lack. A BIG rock probably has enough distance from the edge under it to provide a microhabitat that’s significantly less arid than the hot open air twenty feet away. In tank, ith heat lamps blasting down, they don’t have any other habitat option unless you specifically give them one. The cycle of hyperactivity to depression sounds like he’s too warm. it could mean other things, up to and including him just being a loony bipolar snake, but I live in a top-floor apartment with no air conditining and it sounds exactly like what Winkle was doing during ther last heat wave. There’s no real need to take him outside. They don’t need sunlight for D3 the way lizards do, and what he really needs is to relax with his new simpler environment. Make things more complicated later, in the future, whe you’re worried he’s gotten bored, but right now he needs to feel like his home is his home, not just one of a million random places that he gets taken around between. As for exercise, if you’re holding him for an hour a day, he’s getting plenty of exercise. Especially if you and him are learning to do that hand-treadmill thing that small snakes are so perfect for. If he’s eating well and not hissing, the interaction regimen is apparently not stressing him. |
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| 09/05/09 04:35am |
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Kalleigh View Profile |
Message To: JackAsp In reference to Message Id: 2067878 My new gopher snake....
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| 09/08/09 11:23pm |
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JackAsp View Profile |
Message To: Kalleigh In reference to Message Id: 2069647 My new gopher snake....
Posting a zoom-lens picture might help someone come up with a better sugestion. |
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| 09/09/09 04:49am |
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