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New snake owner, need basic advice.

S

Skrigg

New member
Hello great forum you all have here.

I recently came into care of a 3yr female Amel Striped and I am trying to get her set up comfortably. She currently resides in a 20g with a UTH pad on one side. I am trying to get the temps right for her and am running a digital thermometer with a lead and sensor.

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My question is where should I position this sensor so that it is useful and doesn't interfere with her? I currently have the base of the hide sitting on the sensor. The hide resides directly above the UTH. Should the sensor even be in the tank? Will she have problems with the sensor wire? Here are 2 pictures of the current setup.

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Second question. She is due to eat (she is currently on a weekly single medium schedule) and is obviously hungry and searching for food. She has been settled in only for a couple hours and I was thinking of feeding her tomorrow (2/20). Should I let he go for longer before a feed?

Last question (for now). She is used to live feeding in her vivarium, I want to switch her to thawed pre-killed mediums being fed in a separate enclosure. Typically should there be any issues with this?

Thank you very much for your help I just want to care for her the best that I can as we love our pets and you all seem to give great advice. I will get pictures of her up soon as she settles in.
 
I would put the sensor directly on the glass above the UTH. Some use hotglue, or some sort of glue.

Usually, when she gets a new home the average wait is about a week before you feed or handle her so that she can get use to her new surroundings.

You can just offer her a pre-killed in a seperate container. If she doesnt go for it right away put the lid on cover with a towel and leave her for about an hour. If she doesnt take it still then I would put her back in her home and wait another week. Usually by then they are good and hungery and will take the prekilled.
 
some will take frozen thawed right away too. depends on the snake. i am babysitting a snake right now for a friend and the snake was on live for 6 years. i didnt want to deal with live so (with her permission) i switched him to f/t. he took the first f/t mouse enthusiastically and has continued to take them ever since.
 
I want to switch her to thawed pre-killed mediums being fed in a separate enclosure.
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If she is used to eating inside her enclosure and you want to switch her to f/t and eating in a different container it might be best to do one at a time. Offer f/t in tank first, make sure its nice and warm, you may need to tease feed for a while to get her interested. After she is taking f/t right away then try feeding her in a tub. It depends on the snake but doing two new things at once will likely result in a refusal.
 
Thanks for the replies. One more question for now. This snake was transported only about 5 miles in the same vivarium that she has lived in since a hatchling, she was moved out and back indoors in about 10 minutes. Is it still wise to adhere to waiting several days to feed her?
 
Abslutely, yes. She'll have been disturbed by the moving around and will be able to smell (or more correctly, taste!) the change in the environment outside her vivarium. All of these factors will have caused her stress and she'll need time to settle.

She'll also need to get used to you and your "new" smell. Whilst they don't get attached to an owner in the same way as a cat or a dog, I believe that they can come to recognise individual people as "safe". You now have to set about persuading her that you're an OK guy!

If you try handling or feeding too soon after arrival, you risk her refusing food - which can turn into a difficult habit to break. You need to make sure that she doesn't link food with stress.

Patience at this stage will bring major rewards.
 
Ok then I will give it some days before feeding. I have some pictures of her and It seems after some newbie research that I was wrong about her type as stated in op. Anyone care to tell me what she is?

Also she has been bred before sometime last year I believe. And if you look at her tail it seems fairly lumpy, the breeder said its possible she may have retained some eggs and hopes that if so they will come out when she is bred again soon. Is this possible or is she just a plump girl?

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Her last shed was 2 weeks.
 
If she's eggbound, breeding her is the *last* thing you want to do! What terrible advice! Feel the lumpy area: if it's hard and feels like an elongated ping-pong ball, she's probably egg-bound. If it's soft and gooshy, she may be just fat. Either way, because the breeder said she may be eggbound, a trip to the vet is likely in order.

As for morph, she is a normal (maybe hypo) pinstripe motley. Pinstripe motley is when the motley circles blur together, creating a striped look without having the genetics to actually *be* a stripe.
 
I would be shocked if a ""breeder"" would sell/give away a snake that is egg binded. Sort of doubt it would be alive this long if it was. Hopfully is was just over fed.
 
"Plump girl"? That's putting it politely! Yikes!! That rear end is very far from normal. It could well just be flab as Megan says - in which case a major diet regime is in order.

Retained eggs which cause that kind of shape are going to cause her serious problems. However, if the previous owner thinks that's what they are, then she's been like that for nearly a year, which makes me think it's more likely that she's just *radically* overweight.

Either way, I'm with Megan and I'd head straight for the nearest reptile vet to get her checked out and have it confirmed one way or the other.

Looks to me like the previous owner has dumped on you. This sort of thing really grinds my gears. It's taking advantange of someone's inexperience (although I guess the previous owner could have lacked basic knowlege themself).
 
I went ahead and handled her to check her back end and it feels very flabby and not hard at all. The previous owner is a close family member and very experienced in their reptiles it is probable that I understood them incorrectly as I am trying to soak in alot of information, they did not say they believed she was retaining eggs.

After she has settled in I will weigh her and put her on a diet with exercise and see if I can get her weight down.
 
Might I suggest a change in substrate? Repti-Bark does horrendous things to their scales.

Is her back end always like that? Have you given her a long soak in the bath yet, maybe she just has to go poop!
 
SquamishSerpents;1417866 Is her back end always like that? Have you given her a long soak in the bath yet said:
Sorry for double posting, no edit feature. I have only been in close contact with her for a few days but she has been like this since I started playing proper attention to her. She ate on the 13th I assume she would have passed by now but she could be constipated. When I start to handle her I will give her a bath.
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The previous owner is a close family member and very experienced in their reptiles
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No reptile keeper worth the name would a) let a snake get into that state, and b) then seriously sell it on as not only healthy, but as a potential breeder.

I'm sorry you've been gypped by someone close to you. You should be able to trust them. Although as I said, they may not be anywhere near as "experienced" as they think they are. Certainly not, if your lass is the evidence of their alleged "expertise".
 
bitsy said:
No reptile keeper worth the name would a) let a snake get into that state, and b) then seriously sell it on as not only healthy, but as a potential breeder.

I'm sorry you've been gypped by someone close to you. You should be able to trust them. Although as I said, they may not be anywhere near as "experienced" as they think they are. Certainly not, if your lass is the evidence of their alleged "expertise".
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Im not sure where I stated that I purchased this snake from anyone, with all of your expertise and ability to put others to fault you may want to pick up some reading comprehension at some point. Also what "state" is this snake in? Overweight? You make it seem like she has been abused.
 
Apologies for being so forceful. I'm really just sad for the snake and sad for you. I'm glad that no money changed hands.

Also what "state" is this snake in? Overweight? You make it seem like she has been abused.
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Overfeeding a snake will give them health problems and shorten their lives. It really can kill and honestly is a form of abuse. I look at photos of cats or dogs in the same condition, and feel the same way.

If you check out the Photo Gallery section, you'll find many photos showing how a healthy Corn should look.
 
Skrigg said:
Im not sure where I stated that I purchased this snake from anyone, with all of your expertise and ability to put others to fault you may want to pick up some reading comprehension at some point. Also what "state" is this snake in? Overweight? You make it seem like she has been abused.
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Skrigg said:
Also she has been bred before sometime last year I believe. And if you look at her tail it seems fairly lumpy, the breeder said its possible she may have retained some eggs and hopes that if so they will come out when she is bred again soon Is this possible or is she just a plump girl?
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That would be intimated right there, in the underlined part of the second quote. "The breeder" means "The person who previously owned this snake/produced this snake and the person I got it from". And this breeder also gave you cruddy advice that was dangerous for your snake.

If it's not egg binding, she's rather markedly obese.
 
This is probably a large misunderstanding due to my lack of knowledge and what I am conveying is likely not the reality of the conversation I had with the previous owner. So going forward if anyone is trolling around looking show their expertise just blame me for providing incorrect information.

Thanks for the good advice given in this thread. It has been helpful.
 
looks to me like shes a bloodred very beautiful corn and i just got mine also so im waitin for her to calm down also so she will feed. ive found alot of info online and at the pet shops and i got this book "corn &rat snakes by philip purser" it has helped me out a great deal and has had alot of info in it i would recommend gettin it good luck with ur new pet
 
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