Snake Stats - February 2014

February in figures...

	Length	Weigh
2 February 2014	68 cm	57 gr
23 February 2014		72 gr
2 March 2014	79 cm	81 gr

This month has been way more stable than January: no shedding process, hence no fasting for the Fury. Plus I decided to start a short plumping up regimen after her last shed on January 27: I fed her twice the first week and regularly after that. It seems to have been effective: she grew 3 cm in January and 10 in February, with roughly the same amount of fasting days.

Snake Stats - January 2014

This month in figures...

	Length	Weigh
26 December 2013	65 cm	47 gr
2 February 2014	68 cm	57 gr

January was a bit of a roller coaster. On the positive side, Furia had the first nice shed in months. On the negative one, she insisted in refusing food even after shedding, and went on 20 days without eating. Of course, her growth has suffered from this, as she only gained 3cm. 

I am assuming winter is affecting The Fury's appetite; cold slows down snakes' metabolism and reduces their appetite and general activity. We'll see if she proves to be a true VBB during the summer.








Scale up!

M.

Snake Stats - December 2013

These are this past month's figures:

	Length	Weigh
18 November 2013	59 cm	36 gr
8 December 2013	-	45 gr
26 December 2013	65 cm	47 gr

The Fury is getting long and slender, she's grown quite a bit in length although the weigh is not following up. That's due to this month's shedding time; Furia does not accept food when in shed or about to be. She's gone 16 days without eating this time, so that's that.

I cannot tell weigh-wise, but she's at a stable 6 cm / month growth rate in length. I am impressed!

Scale up!

M.

Snake Stats - November 2013

People use to wonder whether or not their snakes' body length and / or weight is according to their age. As for people, there is really no such thing as normal; every snake grows at its own pace, and that's just how it should be. There are fat snakes, skinny snakes and average snakes, and I am afraid the latter category englobes a huge diversity of slithery ones.

However, keeping numerical track of a snake's length and weigh can be really useful to detect a lot of things (a growth spurt, a digestive problem, etc.). I personally love to be able to put my snake's growth in numbers and pat myself in the back when the results are good, so that's that.

In this Snake Stats series of posts I will quickly state Furia's measurements (currently 5 months old):

	Length	Weigh
7 October 2013	53 cm	19 gr
1 November 2013	-	28 gr
18 November 2013	59 cm	36 gr

When first arrived, 3 months old aproximately, she was already quite long (considering VBBs hatch at 25 cm aprox.). As expected at this age, she is growing extremely fast. As for weigh, she has almost doubled her initial weigh in less than a month and a half! 

All the above does really make me happy, as I have been unwillingly underfeeding her for the first 6 weeks... but more on this in the post on reluctant feeders.

Scale up!

M.

Let me introduce you...

For now, this online notebook will have three actors: you, my VBB and me.

Let me start by saying that I am glad you stopped by and hope you will find what you are looking for in here. If you don’t, feel free to leave me a comment or send me a message and I’ll see what I can do.

About me, there’s just nothing interesting to be told, except that I have a little experience with snakes. I’ve always been in love with animals in general and reptiles in particular. Though snakes are my favorite hands down. In September 2012 I caved in and bought a corn snake to get me started. I had Discordia for a year and she was the most placid thing. Never aggressive, good eater and shedder, she fooled me into thinking keeping snakes was easy. No, not really ;)

I knew I wanted some sort of challenge snake-wise but wasn’t really planning anything in particular. In September 2013 I went to the annual reptile show nearby, wishlist in hand with just a list of accessories that I needed, and decided to behave like a good girl. Among around 500 snakes there, just two were Vietnamese Beauty snakes, and I happened to see them. That’s how my VBB girl made her entrance…

She was this teeny tiny olive toned shoelace locked up in a ridiculous deli cup in the Serpentarium stand.  After putting some thought into it -I wasn’t prepared for her and was going to face some major logistic problems- I asked to hold her. She tried to flee from my hands just as if she was going to grow wings in mid-air, she wasn’t aggressive at all but so freakin’ nervous she started rattling her tail as soon as she was put back in her deli cup. That’s when my friend told me to get her because we were very much alike… I am not even denying it.

Here are two pictures of her when she got home, in blue:

She’s a CB 2013 female Vietnamese blue beauty. When I bought her she was probably 2 months old, measured roughly 50cm and weighed 19gr.

She sure had some serious attitude, and I just love that. I named her Furia because it fitted her very well at the time; it means fury in Spanish. I wanted a challenge and I had it. Let’s see what she put me through…