Taiwanese Beauty Snake Caresheet

Brumation

"Brumation is a term used for the hibernation-like state that cold-blooded animals utilize during very cold weather. On the other end of the spectrum is a state known as aestivation, which like brumation, provides a way for reptiles to handle temperature extremes." - google define

"Brumation is an example of dormancy in reptiles that is similar to hibernation. It differs from hibernation in the metabolic processes involved.

As a general idea, brumation is just that, as previously stated, your snake will slow down, potentially preferring the cold hide and start refusing food.  This happened and is happening to my girl (November 13th) as it's getting much colder outside.  The temperature inside and in her enclosure has remained constant and I haven't lowered it.  She is choosing this and food is still being offered, last night it was two medium mice.  I dangled with tongs, moved it around, let her smell it, etc.  She just shied away and wanted nothing to do with them.  So I left the mice on her feeding tray outside of the cold hide (where she currently is) and this morning they were both still there.  So I repeated the process of enticing her to eat with no success.  They were discarded.

As an illustration, the temperature gradient of taiwan:

 and of Chicago (where I am):

For about a month and some change I've had her in a 10 gallon tank, and while it was small, she was OK.  Today she was moved into her 125 gallon enclosure with a large soaking tub, 2 feet of flexwatt under and the ugh that was on the 10 as back heat, fake plants for her to climb on, etc.  Hopefully she likes it.  It does look much nicer overall.  I'll have some pics up pretty soon.

11-6-14

Last night, Wednesday, was a feed day.  She accepted the first mouse by tong right away and ate it in front of us, my son included.  I hope he enjoyed the 'live' show.  And I think he did.  I left the other mouse in the tank with her, she didn't touch it, so it was removed this morning.  I'll try again today maybe.  I'm not that worried about that, but...

Prior to the feed, I had taken her out for her daily handling and I noticed that on the very tip of her tail she was missing scales and it was red, seems to be a bad shed last time after all.  That's no good.  I just hope it doesn't get infected.  The length of it is maybe a centimeter or less so it's not huge, but it does look painful and seeing as these are semi-arboreal it's something that will be used.  I don't know what'll happen to that portion of her tail honestly.  I guess either it'll heal and be fine (best outcome), not heal and fall off then heal all be it shorter (second best outcome), not heal and get infected (worst outcome).  I'll have to wait and see, and I'm considering a vet visit because of it.  I don't think it's necrosis / necrotic / hematoma yet, but she might need antibiotics.

11/2/14

I followed the standard Sunday routine of two defrosted medium mice and some privacy. It worked, she ate them both. I didn't do anything different than my last couple of posts in terms of thawing/prep/placement/etc. So I couldn't have been that far off in my guess at a good routine.

Prior to the feeding, maybe 6 hours earlier, I had taken her out and let her move around quite a bit, after a long warm up on me, she did just that.  And very much didn't want to be put back in her enclosure.  Good.

She seems to be getting much more use to being handled.  She never really had a problem with it, but now she just hangs out until I move around and she thinks it's time to play (read: escape).  And the 'staying on my wrist' time is getting better as well, I'm guessing that in a year or two of doing this I'll be able to take her out to a show or two, that'll be fun.

The night before that I gave her another warm water bath as there were some remnant scale flakes on her belly, hopefully that took care of them.  She still hates the bath.  I'm guessing that has more to do with being a semi-arboreal snake than it does with her specifically.