Housing a Vietnamese Blue Beauty snake - Custom made vivarium project

Hey!

One of my main concerns when I bought The Fury was setting up an appropriate environment for her. 

Vietnamese Blue Beauties are not exactly like Corn snakes or Ball pythons, if you know what I mean. Furia will eventually grow to an astonishing 260 cm. Just try to see this from my point of view: being an average Spanish woman, when my snake will reach her adult size she will be 100cm taller than me. It's shocking.

I addressed the topic of housing a VBB in this post, so definitely check that out if you're looking for more general information. On today's entry, I will address my plans and projects for this ever growing girl.

I am currently housing Furia in this ExoTerra glass terrarium (90 x 45 x 45 cm), and it's been perfect so far. High enough for her to climb and long enough for her to wander around and (hopefully) not getting bored of her surroundings. Given her current length (79 cm), this terrarium is going to last her some more time, but it's absolutely not a permanent solution.

So after putting some thought into this I concluded the best thing to do is to get a custom made vivarium, large enough to be her home when she's a full grown-up. Assuming she'll reach 260cm, I've settled on a terrarium that's 160cm long, 60 cm wide and 80 cm high. It sounds to me like the mother of all terrariums... It may of course be bigger, but that's already a pretty darn big enclosure.

As for the materials, I am willing to stick with glass because it's easy to clean and visually attractive. It lets the light through and works perfectly fine with under-tank heaters. If built properly, a glass terrarium can last a considerable time, and that's exactly what I am looking for. I will most probably buy from a local shop; after closely examining their work I found it neat and practically built, plus they can implement a couple of changes I requested. They actually sent me a picture of one of their biggest terrariums (still smaller than what I intend to get)            ==>

The thing with a monster terrarium like this is that you have to get a shitload of stuff to put in there: branches to climb, places to hide, plants, rocks, ledges, etc. And: (i) buying nice stuff (I am thinking Magnaturals) in Spain is impossible; (ii) buying it online from the UK or the US is quite expensive due to shipping costs.

And yet, having quite a full terrarium will be necessary when I'll first move The Fury from one terrarium to another, as being overly exposed in a place she isn't familiar with will be a considerable source of stress. 

I don't think I'll move the beast until she's over 100 cm, and I've noticed she's bulking up rather than growing in length, so I think I still have at least 6 months ahead of me to plan and think (and build?) everything I want to put inside the custom made terrarium. 

To be continued...

Scale up!

M.

How to clean a terrarium? How to spot cleaning and full-on cleaning.

After you get your enclosure pimped up with all you need it will eventually be time to clean. 

Excrements will need to be removed swiftly, so you need to be on the lookout a couple of days after feeding your Vietnamese Blue beauty. Snakes usually excrete one single time after digesting, though other biological/digestive rythms are not uncommon and should not be a source of concern. 

If you're a recent snake owner or just want to make sure your VBB's excrements are normal, there's a picture of what you should find in your tank: 

Spot-cleaning is enough for safely removing excrements from your terrarium. Just keep in mind to remove all dampened bedding; as always, it's better to be safe than sorry so I usually remove everything including 3cm of bedding around the excrements, to be sure everything is coming out. I then add some more fresh bedding and voilà!

But a massive clean-up will eventually be necessary; I usually get it done once a month and it takes me around an hour and a half because I like to be thorough. The more stuff you have on your terrarium, the longer it will take for you to clean; it's mathematical.

Here's what I do on a full clean-up day:

1. I take The Fury out of her terrarium and lock her in a RUB with one hide. In order not to stress her too much, I place that RUB in a room I won't be using during the clean-up process.                                                                                                                 
2. I pour cold water in my bath tub and add some bleach (the ratio should be around 1:10).                                                                                                                                                         
3. I remove every object I have in the terrarium: caves, hides, branches, statues, vines, pastic foliage, water bowl. I place them in the mix of bleach & water, making sure every part of those objects is wet or soaking in the mixture.                                                                                                                                         
4. I also take my feeding gear and let it soak in the tub: glass jar, thongs, feeding bowl.                                                                                                                           
5. In the meantime, I remove ALL the aspen bedding and throw it away. You may think this is a waste of bedding, but it's really not. Old shed skin, urates and excrements may be found in there, no matter how thorough you are while spot-cleaning. I'd rather not have bacteria growing up in my snakes' tank...                                                                                                                         
6. When my terrarium is empty, I prepare some more bleach & water mixture in a small bowl, and clean the whole enclosure with it and a cleaning sponge.                                                                                                                             
7. I then dry the terrarium with paper towels that I dispose of.                                                                                                                                
8. In order to make sure no bleach residue is left behind, I thorughly clean my sponge and give a couple more wipes to the tank with just water. Then, I re-dry it with new paper towels.                                                                                                                    
9. I like to let my tank to air-dry for a little while, with the doors open and the roof taken out.                                                                                                                                         
10. In the meanwhile, I thoroughly rinse the objects that had been soaking in my bath tub with plain water. This step is important in order to ensure no bleach will be left behind for your snake to be in contact with.                                                                                                                        
11. They can then be air-dried (e. g. for the plastic foliage, vines and branches) or dried with paper towels. When 100% dry, it's time to re-build a nice terrarium!

In order to avoid that The Fury gets bored of her surrounding I usually vary my terrarium's setting from one clean-up to the other by just changing the items' placement. That's really up to you, but in my opinion a healthy snake will need to have its curiosity triggered and its mind challenged by new landscapes...

Scale up!

M.

How to raise humidity in a terrarium? / How to make a moist hide

Vietnamese Blue Beauty snakes don't require any specific humidity level as long as they have access to a large (and I mean LARGE) water bowl.

With that said, you may want to consider raising your terrarium's humidity level when your snake is due a shed. A good, one-piece shed requires humidity; if you live in a dry place, you will need to raise it artificially. 

There are a few ways to do this:

1. Move the water bowl above the heat mat (if you have one). This easy step will allow more water to evaporate than keeping the water in the cold side of the tank. Depending on how much you need to increase the humidity level, you may also want to make sure the evaporated water is kept in the terrerarium to the further possible extent by covering its top with a blanket or a plastic bag / cover.

2. Spray water once or twice a day. Just try to keep the spraying moderate.

3. Put damp sphagnum moss in your terrarium. Also, no need to buy it fresh; you can get a large batch, cut it into sections and freeze the ones you will not use. 

To get them ready to use just pour boiling water over them and let them soak in for a while. Pat them with a towel or tissue until they're damp -not wet!- and put them in your terrarium. Voilà!

4. Set a moist hide. First of all, pick a container. Any reptile hide or cave will work, as well as any tupperware or RUB, provided that you cut a hole in it for your snake to get in and out. Second, get some dampening material, i.e. paper or fabric tissues, towels, sphagnum moss, you name it. Third, moisten your dampening material with water and place it in your hide. Leave it preferably in the hot side of your terrarium and let the snake make use of it. If you're worried your snake won't, take all other hides out or leave only moist hides for it to sneak in.

Here's the quick moist hide I made last time The Fury had to shed:

All methods above can be combined as it suits you best. However, keep an eye on your hygrometer, you don't want humidity to raise too much.

For reference, my snakes usually get good sheds when humidity is over 50%. However, I like not to get it under 60% when a shed is due.

Let me know what you think.

Scale up!

M.

How to measure your snake?

I'm all in for keeping record of my snakes' growth; not only to pat myself in the back and show off, but because it evidences a bunch of stuff.

At first, in what seems the paleolithic, I simply measured my corn snake's shed skin. It's so much easier than to get your snake ligned up... BUT it's not accurate. Definitely not. If you've held recently shed skin in your hands you know it feels moist and is quite stretchy. In fact, your snake may very well have stretched it while slithering off of it. Ditch this option.

What has worked wonders ever since is the Snake Measurer Serpiwidget. 

Directions

1. Take a picture of your snake next to a ruler or any object that can work as reference (pen, phone, etc.), like so:

2. Upload the picture to the Snake Measurer's site.

3. Measure your ruler or reference object and specify it's length in the Snake Measurer (remember to specify the measure unit).

4. Go through your snake's body from one end to the other, trying to select the centre of its body. If your snake shape is curvy, like in the picture above, I'd recommend to select small portions of body each time, even though the program is going to mimic the curves as accurately as possible.

5. Feel awesome because your snake has grown.

I hope this helped :)

Scale up!

M.

Notes on: VBB shedding (I)

The Fury has shed once a month since I've got her, and is about to do so again for the third time.

Her first shed happened a few days after I first brought her home and went on like a charm. The second one, on the other hand, was awful (you can find the details and pictures here). It got me trying to pinpoint what had changed between the two, so I would be able to counterrest it for Furia's third shed, which is imminent.

I finally figured out the one thing that diferred in The Fury's viv between October and November: I turned on the heat mat. As simple as that!

And yet, at that moment I didn't realize turning the heat on would reduce the humidity level in my VBB's terrarium. It lowered to 40% and that sufficed for Furia to have a whole retained shed.

In a day or two, after her third shed, I'll hopefully be able to confirm my veredict...

Scale up!

M.






Edit - 21 December 2013:

Furia had an awful shed again yesterday. Temps were ok and humidity was up to 65-70%.

Her whole face had come off normally *relief* but 80% of her skin was still there. I put her in a RUB with 1,5 cm of warm water and a towel for her tu rub against, put that partially in the hot side of her terrarium and left her for half an hour. When I came back, she had shed 1/3 of her body, so I left her to it for another half an hour. After that, I found a perfect shed, up to her tail tip!

Note to self: add a moist hide just when her eyes clear next time.

Scale up!

M.

Edit - 2 February 2014:

In order to start 2014 with a nice shed I added a homemade moist hide in Furia's terrarium right after I noticed her eyes were starting to be opaque. She was reluctant to hide in there so I was forced to remove all other hides... and make her. 

It WORKED. I found a one-piece perfect shed!

Note to self: I didn't do anything else to raise humidity in Furia's terrarium this time; it was stable at 40%. Placing a moist hide seems to be the winning method for the Beast.

Bad shed, what to do? How to manually remove un-shed skin from a Vietnamese Blue Beauty snake.

After being in blue, your snake will eventually shed its skin. If everything goes well, you should end up with one piece of old skin going from the snake's nose to its tail.

If your snake has had a bad shed, you'll find scattered pieces of old skin in your terrarium. Make sure you're able to complete the puzzle; if not, keep reading! If it's had an awful shed, you'll notice this:

Can you see the wrinkles forming on The Fury's skin? Nasty. Her old skin was still adhered to her new one, and she hadn't been able to slither off of it. In some parts of her body, ragged pieces of skin were hanging:

After taking a close look to Furia's terrarium, I found this:

Obviously not enough skin to cover a 50cm snake, this was the ultimate evidence of a bad shed.

Un-shed skin has to be removed as it may impede a correct blood flow and even lead to necrosis. After a bad shed, quickly examine your snake in order to evaluate damages. You have to pay special attention to (i) retained eye caps, and (ii) retained tail skin. Every piece of old skin must come off, but eyes and tail are especially sensible. In some cases, a retained tail tip may cause the death of skin tissue and even tail loss.

You want to make sure that both spectacles have been correctly shed, so you need to look for this:

If you notice un-shed skin anywhere on your snake's body, there are a few measures you can take; ranged from lighter to harsher:

1º The towel method. Cover your snake with a towel and put light pressure with both of your hands while you let your snake slither its way out. If you find ragged pieces of skin in your towel, the measure is working. Consider repeating. 

Tip: this measure works well when the un-shed skin on your snake is still humid. If dry, skip to the next one!

2º Moisturizing with olive oil. If there is a stubborn piece of skin refusing to come off, you can apply olive oil (or any other oil) to the area with a cotton ball and let the skin get impregned by it. After some minutes, try to manually remove the old skin. If it doesn't come off, let it work by itself. Put the snake back in its terrarium and come back later to see if the skin has effectively been shed. If not, you can repeat or try with the methods listed below.

This method is not appropriate for a large un-shed piece of skin!

3º The humidity cure. Place your snake in a R.U.B. with a damp towel covering 100% of its floor. Leave your snake in there for several hours or overnight. Humidity will help the old skin to come off. If there's stubborn un-shed skin, you can then use the towel method above.

4º The warm bath. Put enough warm water to cover 2/3 of your snake's height in a R.U.B., as shown below, and let your snake bathe for 20 to 30 minutes. After that, try the towel method explained in no. 1.

Tip: you can also put a folded towel in the RUB floor; it will get extremely wet, but will likely help the old skin to come off easily and naturally as your snake wanders by. This works best if you put part of your snake's body between the tower folds (and pray it doesn't move too much).

5º The manual removal. After all other measures have been tried and failed, try to manually (and very gently) remove your snake's old skin. For this, the snake's skin MUST be moist, otherwise you will very likely hurt your snake.

The Fury is a feisty snake, but calmed down by herself when I attempted to manually remove her old skin. I can't say she was comfortable, but she made the process easy by not moving as she felt it was something good, I guess. Either way, it took me a good 30 minutes, so you might want to put some music on before you start ;)

Manual removal has no secrets. Just be careful not to hurt your snake by pulling up the skin too fast and don't forget any piece of skin, especially not the eye caps and tail tip. You can try to mimic ecdysis' natural process by rolling back the old skin, from the head to the tail.

I hope this proves useful! If you want to share your results or any technique that has not been listed in this post, please do in the comments section below or by email :) I would love to hear from you.

In the meantime, scale up!

M.

Keeping record - get your Vietnamese Blue Beauty's business straight.

As you know, I keep record of my VBB's data, and it's obviously not only to write my Snake Stats but to be able to control that everything is fine.

You can do as you like best; I am quite old school and get it all written down by hand in a specific notebook. These are the events I keep record of:

1. Feeds & prey size. You will probably feed your snake every week for a long time, so it's quite easy to remember the day your snake is due a meal, but circumstances may bring you to feed your snake every 5, 10 or 14 days. Then, it becomes tricky. Having it noted down makes it a no-brainer... Also, regarding the prey size, it's always good to know for how long you've been feeding your snake this or that mice size in order to be able to evaluate if your snake is growing adequately or if you should increase the size of the prey, for example.                                                                                 
2. Sheds. The time elapsed between sheds is indicative of various things (as explained here). A growth spurt, a skin injury, parasites, etc. It's good to get your data straight just in case you need to check it later on; after a while you will not be able to remember when or how often did your snake go through ecdysis.                                                                                                             
3. Weight & length. Controling your Vietnamese Blue Beauty's growth is very important, as it can evidence health issues and internal (digestive) injuries.                                                                                                                         
4. Other random stuff. In here I just write down if The Fury was grumpy, if she seems to have injured herself and where, if she takes too long to poo, if she does it too often, if she's more active, if she's more secretive, you name it. Anything that seems relevant or important at the time.

Scale up!

M.

Is my Vietnamese Beauty snake in blue?

Any snake will eventually prepare for ecdysis (aka shed its skin). There are a few signs to recognize the different phases of this process. Here we go:

How do I know my snake is about to shed? You'll notice the start of the shedding process because your snake's colors will become duller, paler and kind of greyed out. Depending on the color of your snake, this will be fairly obvious; it particularly stands out in darker colors. 

The ultimate evidence that your snake is about to shed is that its eyes will become clouded and opaque. A snake is continually getting things in its eyes. I mean, can you imagine tunneling in 2m of aspen bedding with your eyes open and without using your hands? Yeah, it sucks. So in order to protect their eyes, snakes have specific scales covering them, known as spectacles or brilles. Just like the rest of the snake's scales, the spectacles will be shed and replaced by new ones, and start detaching from them. This is known as "being in blue".

You can find an example below. The first picture was taken when Furia was in blue, the second after a shed (click to enlarge).

You can tell the state she's in just by looking at her eye and "eyeliner". Simple :)

Another sign that your snake is approaching ecdysis is that it will usually become secretive and hide for several days in a row.

After two or three days of having clouded eyes, they will become clear again. Then, you're sure to have your snake shed its skin in another two or three days. And that's when you have to prepare the shedding gear. More on this in a later post!

Why does a snake shed? Well, there are various reasons for this:

1. Snakes need to periodically renew their skin's outer layer. It will happen more often as hatchlings and sub-adults, when their growing rate is higher, but they will keep doing it throughout their lives.

2. They will also shed their skin after an injury, in order to quickly remove damaged scales. That can take several ecdysis in a row.

3. In females, it can indicate that they are ready to lay their eggs after brumation.

4. It can also evidence the presence of skin parasites such as mites that the snake is inefficiently trying to get rid of.

Snakes don't show their physical state as plainly as a dog or a human, so you have to constantly read the signs. It is useful to keep record of every shed in order to be able to check your data every time and again to determine whether or not a specific shed may be evidencing a health issue.

Scale up!

M.

How to tame a Vietnamese Blue Beauty snake?

If you have a Vietnamese Blue Beauty snake or have done some research on them you know they can have a rocky attitude.

No one wants to have a 2m60 monster like this [no, it's not smiling]:

 (source)

(source)

A VBB kraken to be does this: rattles its tail, hisses and bites. That's when you have to start a taming training.

Here are some things that have worked for me, I hope you'll give them a shot and let me know what you think. These steps should work with virtually any VBB, though a sub-adult or adult may be more resilient to change its behavior than a hatchling. Then, it's just a matter of patience and setting a routine. If you have any trouble with patience, just think of handling this:

(source)

1. Get the snake used to your scent: you don't want to overwhelm your snake, so the best way to do this is to be progressive. Let the VBB know that your scent does not need to be associated with a threat, that you don't want to harm it. And just little by little let it get accustomed to it. 

For this, just take a piece of clothing you have been wearing - it will be impregned with your body scent - and place it in your Blue Beauty's terrarium. Leave it as many time as needed (overnight, two days, a week, it's really up to you).

What I did: I took the top of the pajamas I had been sleeping on for a couple of days and placed it in the enclosure. I left it there for two more days, in which I didn't attempt to handle the Fury, opening the viv only to change her water. Good news: I eventually found her hidden in there, several times. So even with my scent, that top felt safe enough for her to sleep on it. That's a win!

2. Handle your snake often, set a routine: Once your snake is somehow more accustomed to smelling you, you can take the taming training one step further: handling. Remeber that being progressive is the key point, so you can set handling sessions of 5 minutes and eventually increase their time span when you see your snake is becoming more comfortable.

Depending on your snake's personality (and whether its species is diurnal or nocturnal) it will prefer to be handled at a certain time of the day. VBBs are diurnal, and mine clearly preferred noon to morining and afternoon. Finding its "schedule" may help you in taming it, though it will be trial and error until you find the correct timing, if it exists.

3. Don't let it tame YOU: I think this one is really important. Admittedly, you're facing an aggressive snake (non-friendly at the minimum). It will hiss and rattle and bite and flee, at least in the beginning. It is not pleasant, it may even be scary. But what you certainly can't do is to cede to this nasty behavior and say "today is not the day, I will try tomorrow". You're postponing facing the problem, but most importantly, your snake is getting the feeling that if it rattles and hisses and bites you will give up handling it, and it will keep doing so until you quit trying or man up. That's a Vietnamese Blue Beauty taming you.

In order to be in control, you have to move steadily, to be firm in your movements. If your Blue beauty hisses and rattles, don't mind it. If it tries to escape, hold it. And if it bites... just insist in doing what you're doing. And that until your snake gets the idea that being mean won't help it not being handled.

I learned this the hard way. Furia was nervous yet non-aggressive when I first got her, and suddenly became a little fury when I would try to handle her. That's when she got her name *wink* She would get in her attack position, rattle and hiss. And even try to bite me at any occasion. 

A snake has two ways of "biting". The first is used to frighten its predator, and consists in attacking with its mouth close, hence just giving a hit. Snake mode slap. The second one is the traditional way: mouth open and ready to swallow. In any case, knowing that will hep you discern whether your snake is just pissed off or ready to kill, preparing yourself for the fight accordingly.

Here's one of the fiesty baby:

See how her upper body is lifted from the floor, in an "S" shape position? Just like the pictures of adults at the beginning of the post. That's the Vietnamese Blue Beauty attacking position. Get familiar with it. It's just useful to be able to read the signs; a snake doesn't talk or bark, so you've got to do what you've go to do to interact with it. 

Being bitten is quite a concern usually, especially with adult specimens. I have to say that I have just a hatchling and have never appreciated the idea of being nipped by it, mostly because I don't know how I would react. I fear that I could rip off one of its teeth or in any other way hurt my snake by moving out my hand too quickly out of surprise. A quick fix for this is to use gloves to take your snake out of its terrarium. 

I used gloves for more or less a month to take The Fury out for a cuddle, it gave me the security to know: (i) she couldn't bite me; (ii) I couldn't hurt her and (iii) I was calmer. Everything was smoother :)

Just use the gloves to take the snake out of its enclosure, and then take them off. You want your snake to get used to be in contact with your skin and familiar with your scent. That will give it confidence.

So now, I am guessing your next question is: how many time will elapse before I have a dog tame snake? Boy if I knew I wouldn't be writing a blog, I would be predicting shit and earning easy money. But I get it, I asked myself the same question. If you do some research you'll find some snakes can never be tamed. But for the most part, they have the ability to learn. And they will. 

Furia was very aggressive for two weeks, I spent 5 minutes just to take her out of the terrarium every time. It was quite a chore, but I kept reminding myself I wouldn't want an aggressive sanke that's longer than me. The taming training is really a programme for both of you (the snake and the reader): you have to follow a routine, set a tempo and try not to skip sessions. If you're thorough, it'll pay.

I kept that strict handling routine for two months straight, leaving Furia be the two days she was digesting her meal. I handled her for 10 to 15 minutes every day at my lunch break and noticed a change after the first month (again, she's just a 5 months old hatchling). I kept on with it just to make sure, and I still handle her at least 4 days a week. But I can gladly report that she's tame.

I hope it helped!

Scale up!

M.

Feeding my Vietnamese Blue Beauty - What do I feed my snake?

There are many options when it comes to feeding:

• Smaller preys quite often (more than once a week)
• Bigger preys less often (usually every 7 days for hatchlings, yearlings and sub-adults, and every 10 to 14 days for adults)
• With / without supplements (calcium or vitamins)

If you wish to feed your snake more than once per week, just bear in mind a snake's digestive process is long and can last up to two days. Thus, it is not really recommended to feed a snake more than once every 4 days, which already seems quite a lot if you ask me. 

Also, snakes are opportunistic feeders: they do not eat because they are hungry but rather because they don't know how many time will elapse between one feed and another, so they feed whenever they have the occasion as a matter of survival. If you offered your snake a fuzzy every 4 days, it would most likely take it, but that does not mean it's hungry nor does it evidence a healthy practice. 

Of course, the feeding options listed above all give different results in growth speed and snake health. I found a very interesting experiment by Snake Bytes TV, the results of which did not exactly match my preconceived ideas. Although it was carried out with corn snakes, I am sure we can extrapolate the results. Watch out!

Feeding experiment: hypothesis

Feeding experiment: the results (starts at 02:07)

The Munson Scale mentionned in the video has been thought for average sized colubrids and is obviously not applicable to VBBs after a certain point, as a sub-adult or adult specimen will most likely weigh over 300 gr. However, until then it can be as good an orientation as any other. 

Snake Weight	Prey Weight	Prey name	Quantity of Preys	Interval
4 – 15 gr	2 – 3 gr	Pinky	1	4
16 – 23 gr	3 – 4 gr	Pinky	2	4 – 5
24 – 30 gr	5 – 7 gr	Small fuzzy	1	5 – 6
31 – 50 gr	7 – 9 gr	Fuzzy	1	5 – 6
51 – 90 gr	9 – 12 gr	Hopper	1	6 – 7
91 – 170 gr	13 – 20 gr	Weanling	1	7
171 – 300 gr	20 – 30 gr	Young adult	1	7 – 10

For those of you who are not familiar with the different mice sizes' names, here is a simple picture (not mine, but I can't find the source):

I personally don't follow the Munson Scale and just go by this rule of thumb: I go up a size when the bulge of the swallowed prey is not really visible once it has gone down half of my snake's body. This worked wonders with my corn, though it might need to be nuanced for my VBB girl. 

Because Vietnamese Beauty Snakes are so slender, it might be a good idea not to go up a size right away, but double the prey items instead for a little while and "upgrade" after that.

Aged 5 months old, I currently feed The Fury as I was told by the seller: 2 pinkies every 7 days. It has been working well so far, as you can see in November snake stats.

I hope this has been helpful.

Scale up!

M.