1 year update

It's recently been Furia's first birthday, and roughly a year since I brought her home with me, so I thought I should do an update on her, aswell as give a brief explanation of the challenges this first year has thrown my way.

A year ago, Furia weighed 19 grams and measured 53 cm. Now she's at a staggering 194 grams and measures 114 cm. See for yourself:

Furia as a hatchling (in blue)

Furia 3 months old:

Furia 8 months old:

 Furia at one year:

Color change. It's obvious that, apart from having grown a lot, she's also experienced a great color change. She's progressively shifted from a dark olive green to a blueish grey shed after shed, literally. As opposed to my corn snake, Furia's shed skin is always greyish as if the skin's pigment is coming off with it as she goes lighter in color, and I think it's awesome.

Feeding. She has a lot to grow yet, for sure, but I believe she will be a fairly small specimen. She is a super picky eater, which is odd for a Vietnamese Blue Beauty snake, but it is what it is. She will fast some days before going into shed --which is always a pain in the ass because you absolutely can't tell when the moment will come-- and also when in shed. But she will randomly refuse food for whatever reason I've not been able to pinpoint yet. 

This has led me to follow a very strict feeding routine that I stick to no matter what. Finding a routine that suited Furia has not been easy, and I've come to deduct that:

• She doesn't like her mice to be thawed in water, as it seems to lose its scent.
• She gets nervous if I take out her favorite hide if she's under it right before I feed her, so I need to take it out at least an hour before feeding her.
• If I wiggle the prey before her she will panic and attack it as if it was a threat, so I need to be gentle and finding the right wiggling degree is not always easy.

I know. Finicky eater. Admittedly, feeding has been the most difficult part of keeping her so far. Not all was on her though, as I've had monstruous difficulties to find a decent mice supplier; keeping snakes in Spain is not a thing, so there aren't many local breeders and sadly, when there are, they suck. I've finally found Xaraleira and have been loving the quality of their mice as well as the packaging and customer care, so I will stick with them even if they are kind of pricey.

Taming. What drove me nuts at the beginning with Furia was her nasty behavior: she hated being handled, she was hissy, nippy and flighty. I quickly decided I didn't want a cracken as a pet, and I implemented a taming programme very soon. 

It was successful too, so I now have a VBB yearling that is adorable. I cannot say that she likes to be handled, and I can see that it stresses her in some way, but she never ever tries to bite me anymore. The taming programme worked after a little over a month, but I've kept handling her quite often to prevent her to go back to her old habits. 

Terrarium. Furia will need a bigger terrarium soon, as she's already using all the space in her 90x45x45 ExoTerra. I've put some more thought into the custom vivarium I want built for her, and I've finally decided to make the dimensions match the shelve the current terrarium is on... so it'll probably be a 150 cm long terrarium, with 35 cm width and 60 cm height. I really want to make the most of the space, so it'll have different levels for Furia to climb on. It seems like a decent space for an adult VBB to me, don't you think?

As you can see, this past year has brought a lot of growing on Furia's side and a lot of thinking on mine. I am glad to say that I am the owner of a happy healty VBB!

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.

How to get my Vietnamese Blue Beauty snake to eat frozen / thawed mice?

If you have a Blue Beauty snake or are planning on getting one AND you've done your research you've read "voracious appetite" and "amazing feeding response" over a thousand times. VBBs are said to be eager feeders.

When I first brought this bugger home she hadn't been fed on a frozen/thawed pinky ever, so one of my first missions was to switch from live to thawed preys. The path was full of fails, let me tell you.

It was a bumpy ride from the start. I happened to attempt to feed The Fury while in blue. My corn never bothered, but this one has her schedule. If she's in blue OR she is about to be in blue, she doesn't feed. And if she's offered food when in blue, she will attack it and flee, just as if you were wiggling a piece of plastic in her face.

She eventually shed, and I fed her a live fuzzy. It was my first time ever and, mildly put, it just confirmed I'm not into snakes for that. But her belly was full and I was happy.

After that, I introduced Furia to frozen/thawed mice. I used several methods that I will explain below:

1. At first, Furia wasn't familiar with my smell and feared me. I am guessing she hadn't been handled much on her two months' life, and she was reluctant to feed in any human's presence. So I defrosted my pinkies in a glass jar (how & why here) and heated them by putting the jar in a casserole with hot water. It takes a while, I am not going to lie, but putting mice in the microwave (defrost setting) didn't have a happy outcome so...

After that, I put the warm pinky in her terrarium close to where she was hiding, covered 2/3 of the terrarium with a blanket and let her do her business. Or not. 

The reason why I used the blanket in such a way was to make Furia feel unseen and safe; and it worked. Try not to cover the whole terrarium though, VBBs are diurnal snakes and will most gladly eat during the day; it's best not to fool them into thinking it's still dark...

2. If your snake doesn't seem interested by the prey you're offering, it may be because it doesn't smell like food, or not enough to trigger its apetite. When that happened, I brained the pinkies before I heated them, offered them to Furia and 99% of the time they were "gone" when I came back. 

3. Still in the scent section, when you want to get your snake to eat thawed mice, you need to compensate for the lack of prey movement with scent. The first way to keep the mice scent is to defrost it in a closed container, preventing it to enter in direct contact with water. The second is to scent it in mice bedding. 

So if your snake doesn't eat and you're willing to try this, it's easy peasy. Just go to an pet shop and ask the seller to give you some mice dirty bedding. Scent the pinky with it and serve.

4. Something else you can do if your snake does not eat is trying different rodent species. Maybe your VBB will be easier to get started on gerbils or rat pups than on mice; it's worth giving it a shot. Some of them also like to feed on lizards when hatchlings. Scenting your pinkies with other rodents' bedding or with a lizard's bodily fluids can also be an option.

5. At one point, Furia stopped feeding altogether. I was quite puzzled, especially after a few successful feeds. So I decided to get her used to be fed in a separate R.U.B.

For this, I first prepare my feeding gear and mice. Then I take The Fury out of her terrarium and put her in the RUB, where I offer her the prey with thongs. 

Tip: it is better to offer the prey on the RUB floor than wiggling it on your snake's face from above. Think on how you would react if an entrecote was coming at you from the sky..! Just like you, a snake will most likely feel intimidated before a fliying pinky ;)

After a month and a half of trial and error, Furia managed to feed on thawed mice without trouble [except when she's in blue]. I don't even need to heat the pinkies anymore.

I hope this was helpful; which method have you tried? 

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...

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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.

How to feed a Vietnamese Blue Beauty snake. Snake feeding gear.

How to feed your VBB will come down to your personal preferences. Here's what I use and why:

Glass jar. As I've had some trouble getting Furia to feed on frozen/thawed mice, I had to find a way to defrost my pinkies while keeping their original scent as much as possible. After trying several methods, I discovered the one that suits me and the beast the better. A closed glass jar will keep the mice's scent, will avoid contact with water if you put it in a casserole to heat and will prevent the mice from going bad if your snake refuses to eat. Put it in the fridge and call it a day!

Thongs. I have never enjoyed the idea to hold dead mice in my hands to feed it to my snakes, so I have used feeding thongs from the start [purchased off eBay, here]. I'd also rather The Fury doesn't associate my body scent with being fed, and that's just one way to ensure that. Again, it's a personal preference, many snake owners don't bother and have never had a problem.

Feeding bowl. I only use the feeding bowl (soap holder) in rare exceptions now, usually when I am in a hurry and don't have the time to feed Furia, then I just leave the pinkies in the bowl for her to find and eat. It prevents her from ingurging bedding and suffer from impaction. I don't really think it is mandatory, as snakes surely ingurge dirt and soil with their meals in the wild, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Until here, all I use when I feed Furia in her terrarium, which is being her personal favorite lately. Check it out:

            


Additional feeding gear (optional):

Back when I started with The Fury she was quite a picky eater, and I found I had more chances to succeed at feeding her when she was fed in a different enclosure.

Feeding R.U.B. This is something I never used with my corn but always did with my Vietnamese Blue Beauty hatchling.

Why? They are said to have such a ferocious feeding response that I worked to separate feeding and handling in my VBB's mind as much as possible.

So what I did is that I put all my feeding gear at hand, take The Fury from her terrarium, put her in the R.U.B. and fed her there. When she was done and her meals were down the lower half of her body, I put her back in her terrarium and leave her be for 48h, in order to allow her to digest peacefully. 


A snake handled while digesting can get stressed and regurge its meal, so it's really better to leave them to it ;)

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.

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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.

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…