ive never heard of oiling a snake, soaking yes, but oiling? o_O

aww i still wanna give him a yummy warmed up hopper tho :D

Well, I didn't know he had mites (When I got him) until recently. Until I can get the proper treatment for mites, vegetable oil acts as a way to treat it. It suffocates them, plus it also helps his scales and skin, resulting in shinier scales and healther sheds!

aperantly, watered down nix does well, but you have to water it down well enough and follow the directions. here ill send a note with the copypasta

Thanks. I have two gallons of vegetable oil though that I bought for this. XD...then I am getting prevent amite. I talked to several other breeders who recommended the prevent a mite and kill the mites with the oil..

I'll keep that in mind though!

yeah, that stuff you can sprits around in corners and stuff

i once saw what a blue tongued skink looks like with mites first hand... was creepy

And yeah, he'll be fed on Friday. XD He was supposed to be fed yesterday, but because he has to be oiled down..I didn't want to feed him and risk him regurgitating on me.

Very nice. I had a ball python once. But he didnt survive the shedding proccess *sniffs*

Oh no! I have five ball pythons myself..2 males, 3 females...and my biggest female has eggs in her! I'm so excited for this breeding season..

thats alot of snakes... you breed your own rodents?

Trying to, that or I buy 50 adult mice for $30 and 100 pinks for $20.

thats a really good price, and i have connections in the local reptile community.
If you dont like the stinkies, try ASF rats. Balls love em, they outbreed rats and mice like white trash, theyre so fun to watch, and they are alot less stinky. The downs are they get to be the size of a syrian hamster at the most, take FOREVER to grow up, and they KNOW what the big hand in thier cage wants to do to thier babies, and act accordingly.

I actually have a pair of african soft furred rats I'm trying to rear up now. I'm trying to raise both those and regular mice. I like them too..to me, they look like giant mice. My mom thinks they look like opossums. Unfortunately they don't like being handled - although I found out they LOVE getting their ears and right beneath their chins rubbed! THey calm down immediately and go to sleep, it's so cute!

As for me..I probably won't be taking their babies...just let their babies grow up to the correct size before freezing..though this first litter I will probably keep all of them.

They aren't quite big enough to breed, but hopefully they will be soon. I've got 19 mice so far, though. And one of my females is about to have babies again too.

yeah...asfs you will need alot more "holding" pens than breeder pens due to the fact they breed so heavy and take so dang long to get to a good size. I loved watching them on a giant rat wheel, and theyd all work together and use the wheel as one, not one fast one spinning another tweaker mouse in circles lol. Its good you can handle them, i never could handle mine, tho i never tried. They will defend the nest REALLY fierce, so i hope you have quick hands like mine.
if you have any rodent breeding questions id be more than happy to help, i volenteered at a reptile place as the rodent breeder for a year, and since the manager is an idiot, i had to look everything up myself XD

Haha, nice! at the moment I don't need any help..i've been an on and off rodent (gerbil and mice, woo!) for a while now. Firs time with any sort of rats, though. I might get back into gerbils....mine were breeding so much I ended up with 32 total adults. My snakes weren't eating them fast enough! >_<

and so far, I've had alot of good luck with my mice. I have to separate a bunch soon though because I have way too many in one container..but I had to take the newest litter (since they're weanlings now) away from their mom who is pregnant yet again. Tonight I'll be trying to set up a separate tank, which shouldn't be that hard.

you do know how to cervically dislocate mice so it's humane, right? ( sorry im a big hippy and allways pre killed )

Yup, I do. Unfortunately there are a few of my snakes who won't eat if its dead or paralyzed. They are very picky - the mice ( or small rat) also have to be inside their living quarters otherwise they won't then either. For the rest of them - usually they're frozen once they're big enough. There's really only the one that eats live, so the rest will get frozen If I can get it that way.

thats good ~ yeah sometimes you gotta if the snakes being a cunt lol

Oh yeah. And she is. I mean, she's very sweet and tame otherwise..but she is so damn picky! Her name is Saphira by the way..and she's a beautiful normal female ball python. I have pics of her in my scraps.

maybe shake-n-bake the mice/rats in asf nasty shavings. asfs are good that way and soil a corner instead of everywhere. I would be carefull cervicalling ASF rats as thier necks are much more delicate...ive had a few.... accidents where they got the job done...but not in one piece.

yikes D:...well, more than likely the ASF's will be frozen, other than the live ones that are given to Saphira who is picky as hell. x3

yeah, just be careful when culling them before you freeze, as freezing live SUUUUCKS o.o ( sorry, im a hippy remember XD i only freeze pinks live, and even then i smoosh em between 2 ice packs to make it fast, ive heard horror stories of mice being alive the next morning with tails, feet, and ears frozen solid)

D: ...well, we don't have that problem. We have a deep freezer that gets stuff frozen really fast. And I usually put them in at the very bottom or close to the vents anyway.

* squeaks and covers ears* NUUUUU : :

....its so hilarious how much i care about my fuzzy little num nums, and then just kill them without blinking XD
.... just give em a little konk on the head for me; ; i know its messy as they bleed, but ohh poor rodents T.T

I'll try to remember that. XD..i'm so used to it now..

Though I did feel horrible when my three original breeder females were finished =(...they bred great for me until their last litter that came out..well, the babies didn't survive to adult hood. No matter what I gave them to fatten them up (treats, veggies, puppy food, rodent food, etc)...they stayed skinny and anorexic looking as hoppers..so i froze them >_<...and..Saphira had a nice dinner DX...i hated it, especially since they all became sweethearts..but I didn't have the room for pet mice. The black one's daughter has done great though..she's pregnant with her third litter already.

yeah, sadly mouse moms burn out, and once they do theyre done. Thats one reason i respect the feeders so much: they work themselves to the bone to make us babies. Ether you stagger them out by rotating males in and out when they become pregnant, or they last about 4 months. One good thing tho, is i bet theyd be nice for an overfed snake that needs to loose fat, but you still want to give nutrients to. I saved the worn out mothers for the fat rattler we had at work, i called em jenny craig mice lol.

Haha! XD...well, my live mice that have to be retired have a place to go..and that is Saphira's belly!

The male mouse who was the 'stud' for the three worked himself to death, I think. Because the black female (the one I still have) had a litter of babies...and she was already having another litter when the others were just barely weaned! And I had found him dead shortly after the original litter was born - but he was also rather fat...my friend thought he was a prego female. XD..but..he died a happy mouse I think..

lol...... i hope his family didnt bury him. ive had that. happened alot dureing the summer where the rest of the family would bury thier dead so you didnt notice them till they STUNK

Nope. I found him the next day, curled up in a corner like he fell asleep. I thought he was too until I opened the cage to check on her and..he wasn't moving!

ahh.... oh well at least he got alot of action ;P

Indeed. XD

Back to our conversation~ I wanted to let you know that my African Soft Furrs had one litter already, a total of six which I kept. Three males, three females. I'm growing up the males and then freezing off two (or giving to one of the snakes as live food)...and recently the parents had another litter. I fed off one of the pinks to a problem feeder that I've been force feeding since september..and she ate! But you're right, the six babies aren't even out of hopper stage yet and there's more!

Also, my friend ended up trying to feed off an african soft fur pink to her snakes (two) but the snakes didn't eat them. So, she rubbed of her scent and put the pinks in with a foster mouse mama. Believe it or not, the mouse mother actually took them in! One of the ASF's escaped...but the other one is still in with the colony of mice. It doesn't fight them and the mice don't fight it. Funny part is..its as big as they are and looks exactly like the mice. She recently gave me that colony too...it's just so funny to see them together.

lol


one more thing, not sure if ive added- once a colony has bred, you CANNOT add more to that colony, or re-introduce.
ASFS are VERY territorial and protective of thier babies. If you try adding another female to an established colony shes gonna get eaten. same with males. Thats why it's hard to find genetically diverse ASF stock as you have to form colonies as weanlings, which at least is better than rats, as ASFs take FOREVER to mature.

Oh yeah, I know. I only separated the six from the parents because they had just had another litter. This next litter will stay in with the parents (although most of the males will be reared up to be almost adult size and then frozen). Out of the six I took from them four will survive..three females, one male.

But yeah, I think that lone ASF will be stuck with the mouse colony for the rest of her life.

WANT.

Well, in a few years I'll have more of his kind! Maybe sooner! I know I'll have other corn snake and rat snake babies this season..so keep a look out! XD And I'll be able to ship.

Can't. My mom is afraid of rodents. :(

You can always get frozen thawed. Or, if I get into garter snakes..all you have to do is feed them guppies.

Hmmm, good point! But I probably don't have room to set up a good living space for it.

Depends on what you're getting. Garter snakes can live fine in ten gallons. Corn snakes will need at least a 20 gallon if they are by themselves...but the bigger the better, of course!

omg thats really cute!

Thanks! My friend said he looked like he was smiling.

LOL he does! so adorable!!

Yup! He's sweet when he wants to be. XD

Wow great shot! But yeah he does look a wittle cranky

Yeah, he wasn't happy at all! Which is why I'm waiting on feeding him so he doesn't regurgitate.

Hey it's anouther iherper! man i'm finding them all over FA.

Haha! Well, it's not as bad as me finding another "Rami" on Iherp! Who has a DA and anime and stuff. XD

Nice. Yeah your the 4th iherper i've found.

Awesome. XD