Lucy - Leucistic Black Rat Snake
I've had a white snake on my wishlist since I started keeping snakes, and after removing wild black rat snakes from my quail shed on a virtually daily basis this summer I decided I wanted a black rat snake too. Steve Roylance posted in my thread about how he loved black rat snakes too, and among his pictures he listed a leucistic baby. Well, that did it. Pure white AND a black rat snake? Sold.
I was originally going to name it something unoriginal like "Snowy", but when Steve told me it was a little girl I knew she needed a lady's name. Lucy is not much more original for a leucistic snake, but she's certainly going to be a beautiful lady and she needs a fitting name.
We had her sent to my roommate's parent's house in Florida rather than try to have her shipped up here in winter time. We gave them very specific instructions to give her only water and leave her in the deli cup until my roommate arrived there the next day. My roommate's mom is absolutely terrified of snakes, and it took only one look to win her over completely.
We got a call, "She's here safely! But she looks so cramped in that tiny cup. Will she be alright?"
"Yes, we'll bring a travel cage when we come tomorrow and move her into that."
45 minutes later we got another call:
"We put her into a bigger cage! She just looked so uncomfortable in that tiny cup."
The next day as my roommate was about to leave he called home and his mom said, "She looks so hungry! I'll go get her something to eat."
And so Lucy ate the day after being shipped. She's had no problems whatsoever, thankfully.
It's easy to see why she won over my roommate's mom. She's an absolute doll. I've heard that leucistic black rat snake lines tend to be snippy and flighty, but she's not even so much as jumpy. She's a lot more alert than corn snakes, and even my king snake--always checking out her surroundings and curious about everything. She's everything I wanted, already such a sweet animal that I can only imagine what she'll be like as an adult.
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