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...

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M.

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.








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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!

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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...

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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.

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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.