Reptiblr - Tumblr Posts
My leucistic Texas rat snake, Dilbert, was so excited for dinner that he came flying out at it when I opened his enclosure and missed by about a mile. I tried to move his food to intercept his path and he ended up grazing me and catching two teeth in my thumb. Thankfully it was the side of my thumb, not the pad.
It didn't phase him at all, and he most likely didn't even notice.
I tried to be stoic but I did utter some choice words. I managed to get his meal into his mouth and him back into his cage before extracting these two snake thorns. Thankfully they're very smooth and came out easily.
Then not even ten minutes later Dextro the corn snake, who it turns out is starting a shed cycle and has reduced vision, jumped past the meal held by my feeding tongs and grabbed my finger and thumb together in a huge bite. He wrapped my entire hand and my tongs, so I couldn't reach his head to tap him or help him disconnect. My middle finger and thumb were pinched together and pierced by two rows of tiny, very sharp needles. He realized his mistake and voluntarily let go after an excruciating 15-20 seconds of me trying to hold very still. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed. He then went back in his enclosure and poked his actual dinner with his nose very thoroughly all over to make sure it was really food and not still my hand before eating it.
My point is that it doesn't matter how much we trust these animals or how well socialized they are. Accidents happen. It's not their fault and I can't be mad at them or even at myself. Anyone who keeps a snake shouldn't ask whether they'll be bitten, but when.
It's just a part of snake keeping!
I only answer to that question with kg because I've had coworkers freak out and telling me they will never ever come by my place to socialize by telling them my Boa boy is 2,1 m so I trained myself to answer "geeh I think aprox 4,5 kilos like my cat." And they go "oh, okay." >:D
for people who dont know how big snakes are
based off a conversation i had recently. my ball python is 4 foot long and 2.5lbs (like 1.2kg)
Hi!
My name is Arielle and this is my art/lizard blog. My former blogs are Nearsightedjew.tumblr.com(mainblog), Lizardbag.tumblr.com and Beardie-Brigade.tumblr.com
However, I’m starting college at the Art Institute in San Francisco, and I need to distance myself from tunglr.hell a little bit, so im deleting my main, and therefore my two sideblogs are going with it:(
SO! here, you can expect
pictures of my beautiful bearded dragon, Falafel
and my personal art and probably school assignments as well
hope you guys like it!
Terrible cat with Fells watching him from the background
The Reality of Breeding
This will be a longer talk, but I really wanted to address some things I’ve encountered this season. This has been my 5th season and also my smallest, most difficult, and most unsuccessful. I wish breeding was all rainbows but it’s not. When dealing with livestock, you’ll also have to be dealing with death in those animals. You can tell yourself over and over that you’re aware of the risks and ready to handle them, but when it comes time, it can be very difficult. This season I’ve had nearly every problem you could hope to avoid while breeding or just even owning geckos; first Flare prolapsed. I saw that his hemipene was not red and healthy and took him to the vet ASAP. She told me the hemipene was actually fine, just had fecal matter on it so it didn’t look normal. After cleaning the hemipene, they sutured it back in and told me to give the hemipene a week and come back for suture removal. After the suture removal, they advised to give him two months off. I decided after this to give him the season off and he hasn’t been bred since. I did try to see if he was interested in a girl 3 months after the incident, but he didn’t have any interest. After Flare’s recovery, I thought I’d be done. Around a month ago, Cira became eggbound. She had already laid one perfect clutch of two fertile and nicely sized eggs. Only seven days later she already had two huge eggs inside her and was lethargic. I will admit I panicked a lot here. I was calling emergency vets who told me this isn’t an emergency and to wait until tomorrow for an appointment. I didn’t think she would make it through the night. She’s always been a calm and easy-going girl, but she was very unresponsive to stimuli and wasn’t moving much. I gave her warm soaks every few hours and syringe fed her calcium. She didn’t dig and showed no signs of wanting to lay. The next day at the vets, they took two x-rays that showed the eggs were abnormally shaped and very large considering she laid eggs only a week ago. We went through a couple options (antibiotics to see if there was an infection in her reproductive tract, waiting to see if she’d lay on her own, calcium injections, spay+egg removal, or egg removal). This was a really tough decision for me, especially considering that she was fine a few days ago and had a perfect first clutch and was more than two years old. I thought since she was old enough, very healthy, and had never had any issues before that I’d never have this problem but there I was. I was told there was a chance she could go right back to becoming egg bound with her next clutch, but they’ve also removed eggs from geckos and that was the end of their reproductive troubles. I asked the vets to make a decision based on what they saw during the surgery. During her 24 minute surgery, the vet saw an abnormal reproductive tract and went ahead with a spay and removal of the eggs. Cira came home and was extremely thin (32 grams; her eggs weighed 6 grams and she’s usually 53-55 grams). She gained weight very quickly (10 grams in one week) and the vet was so happy with her progress. She still has 4 of her 5 sutures and will shed them out on her own, and is back up to 50 grams and is eating so well. $800 in vet bills and I was sure that would be the end of the troubles for the season, and I was wrong. Yesterday an egg that has been incubating for two months began sweating and made slits in the egg. Twelve hours had passed and not much had changed besides how deflated the egg had become. I candled the egg and saw no movement, and decided to cut the egg. Inside was a fully formed and seemingly perfect bell sunglow that had died in the egg somehow. This was one of only four viable eggs I had this season and was the only bell egg of them all. Mind you, I had 10 girls I was planning on breeding. Only five mated, and only three produced viable eggs. This season has been a huge reminder that breeding is so much more than cute baby geckos. Before you consider breeding, please take this into consideration. Breeding any animal is not glamorous, it’s a shocking reality that puts your animals in danger and makes you realize that horrible things can always happen, no matter how much you try to prevent them. I’d also like to make the comment that you can never have enough money saved up for emergencies like these, and that despite being marketed as an easy and cheap pet, medical attention is so important but also very costly for any pet.
She sits and looks at me like she's waiting for something
She's so crazy this morning!!!! I want to cuddle her but she keeps running around!!
This lovely little lady shat on her hammock for my mom to wash
My mom had me look for some old pictures of Jack to show her girlfriends son. I miss him so much it hurts Ps: he wasn't stressed out, Jack was a special needs rescue and had a permanent black beard
