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A question

CreepyCrawlrGrl

CreepyCrawlrGrl

Converted Snake Lover
Quick question: I'm new to owning snakes, and I was taking pictures today of our "kids" and began to wonder if the flash bothered them at all. I'd taken a few pictures without thinking about it with the flash on, and they didn't react to it at all, which led me to wonder if perhaps they don't even see it? Does anyone know anything about this?
 
I haven't a clue, but I understand that regular heat bulbs (white light) can bother them which is why it's recommended that you use red.

I've had to use my flash before, but I always try to make the lighting conditions as best as I can so I can turn the flash off. I have no idea if it bothers them (doesn't seem to), but why stress them for no reason, right? :)
 
I didin't know white light hurt their eyes (my boyfriend is the snake expert around here), but that's good to know! I just wondered about the flash because certainly, it'd be disconcerting for a snake. Some big idiot is holding a camera to their face and flashing a light in their eyes- I can see how they'd be annoyed. But our snakes didn't react at all. And in our apartment, NOT using flash is rarely an option (stupid poor lighting... :))
Anyway, here are our snakes (Note: user MichaelBoyko is my boyfriend, so these are his snakes, too).


The ball python is a male, het for ghost and black back, and he's about a year and a half years old. We call him Demon, but really, that's not the best name for him- he's a total sweetheart, very social and active. Unfortunately, he's a very fussy eater, and we haven't been successful in feeding him ever. The breeder apparently successfully fed him dead mice, but he's refused every offer, and while his brother (who we recently sold) had no problem eating live mice, he just sits there and lets the mouse sniff at him. If anyone has any feeding tips for ball pythons, we'd really appreciate the help- we can't figure him out, and we've tried just about everything.

The second little one is Nippy on our climbing wall we made for him (just a bunch of pushpins in the wall, it's great for our smaller corns. They climb all over it, seem to enjoy it quite a bit.) He's just over a year, too, and he's a "sunglow" amelanistic, het for anerythristic "a." He's by far my favorite- we get along famously.

Icepick's next, and she's about as old as Nippy, and she's a "charcoal" anerythristic "b," and she's kind of a spaz. :) She's rather sweet sometimes, and other times she's just kind of tweaky. She seems prone to mood swings, but overall we like her. :)

And finally, we have Gracie, who is our "coral" hypomelanstic snow. She's actually about the same age as the others, but she's quite a bit bigger. We were slightly concerned about that until we visited a breeder and saw just how big the range in sizes with corn snakes can be. She's our newest, so she's still getting used to us. We're trying to get her used to being held, because the breeder never really handled her much. Luckily, she's not a biter, so we haven't encountered that problem at all, but she's not overly fond of being held as it is now. Overall, though, she's a sweetheart, and we enjoy her lots!

Well, that's it for now. Sorry for the ginormous post. :)
 

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So do you always hang your snakes off thumbtacks? :laugh:

Balls are the pickiest eaters. If they stop eating, there's really nothing you can do to make them eat, but the worst is there's usually NO reason whatsoever why they stop. This was the one and only thing that detered me from buying one (and bought my corn instead). Price was not a factor. I wanted a ball python. However, losing a couple hundred bucks because it refuses to eat, and me not knowing a thing about snakes (at the time) didn't want to take that chance.

My only suggestion is to maybe leave him (in the most possible stress free environment) for a week or so, then when he's not looking, drop a mouse near him and see if he takes it. If that doesn't work, then maybe play with him until he's comfortable, but don't offer food? I really don't know what else to suggest. If a ball doesn't want to eat, it's just not going to happen.

Great pics. :)
 
Spirit said:
So do you always hang your snakes off thumbtacks? :laugh:
Click to expand...

LOL

Check that out..... Thumbtacks :laugh:

I had a ball python and it took him forever to eat. He went months before eating again. I struggled with him for about 2 years and I had to give him away. Great snake but just wouldn't eat....
 
lol, yup, thumbtacks. Everything we'd heard about cornsnakes said that they liked to climb, but we don't really have much to put in thier vivariums for them to climb on. So we just put a bunch of tacks in the wall one day, spaced so that the little snakes could fit between them, and they'll climb all over the place. Seems to work great. :)

Yeah, the ball python isn't my favorite. He's growing on me, though, now that his brother's not around. When the two of them were together, they were both completely antisocial; couldn't get them to interact with you much at all. However, now that he's on his own, little Demon seems much friendlier. I wonder if this might end up having an effect on his feeding habit? We haven't tried feeding since his brother left, but who knows? It's had such a big effect on his personality, maybe his eating habits will change, too. I'd just hate to see him get sick or something- he's already really underweight for his age. We'll try those tips, though, and let you know how they work out. Thanks for the advice!
 
Well just make sure the tacks are secure. That would SUCK if one happened to fall and the snake fell on it.

The only thing I can suggest for the ball is not to keep shoving food at him, hoping he'll eat. But you knew that already. ;) Good luck... keep up posted when he does decide to chow down. How long has it been?

(Have you tried searching here?)
 
Spirit said:
Well just make sure the tacks are secure. That would SUCK if one happened to fall and the snake fell on it.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about that, we keep a good close eye on them. And they're in there mighty tight. We used a hammer to make sure they got in all the way, because we couldn't push them in with our fingers- hurt our hands too much.

The bp- let's see, my boyfriend got him in April, and he hasn't eaten since then, so about 6 months now. I got an email from someone on the boards who said he had one that didn't eat for the first nine months after he got him, and then one day he ate just fine, and has eaten consistently since. We'll keep trying- all the tips are very helpful, thanks!

In other news, we went to visit our favorite breeder here in Edmonton (VanderKm on the boards) and found out that our little sunglow Nippy, who we've always referred to as he, him, our little boy, etc, is actually a girl. The breeder Mike got him (sorry- her) from in the first place said with fair certainty that She was male, but then today we finally had HER sexed, and much to our surprise, our little boy is a little girl. That makes three now- puts a minor dent in our breeding plans. But in the long run, it's great- All three are different kinds of corn snakes (we're now thinking that there's a possibilty that Icepick is part ratsnake, but we won't know until we breed her), which means that one male could end up giving a great number of different breeds of babies when the time comes. But we're a good year or so away from even trying it, so we'll let you know when the time comes. Just thought you'd all be interested.
 
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