Koko is a Royal (Ball) Python.
11/10/99 We got Koko from an irresponsible owner. She had only been with this person for about 1 month. Her prior owners before her were also irresponsible. They fed her 1 mouse every month and a half. This is not nearly enough food for a ball python. The woman we got her from fed her 2 fuzzies once a week (still not enough). She kept her in a 40 gallon breeder "critter cage". She had a water bowl with very little water but alot of fleas (probably from the three dogs and 1 cat she had), there was a heat rock in the tank but it wasn't plugged in, thank god because there was electrical tape covering a splice in the wire near the rock on the inside of the cage near the water bowl. She had red repti-bark as substrate but there was more feces than bark in the tank. We removed a large splinter from the Repti-Bark that was lodged deep underneath a belly scale. There was no hide house for her. When I picked her up out of the tank she was ice cold and wrapped around my arm and wouldn't let go,obviously getting warmth from my body. She seemed very sweet and had good movement. I noticed she had what looks like a broken rib and 3 scars from mice bites (she was fed live mice). She is very, very thin,you can see her backbone very well. If you know what a ball python looks like body wise (thin neck-well rounded thick body-blunt tail),it's not like her. She has the body shape of a corn snake. I brought her home and put her in a tank with a heating pad underneath and a full spectrum light above and fresh water. I dumped the contents of her tank which the lady ask me to take too, and washed it out with soap & bleach and rinsed it well. I lined the bottom of that tank with newspapaer which we use for substrate for all our snakes and treated it with provent-a-mite. I made a hide box out of a large plastic pot for plants and gave her a new water bowl with fresh water and vitamin suppliments added to it. I put the heating pad under the tank and set the light above the tank. She stayed in the hide house for about 3 hours (obviously warming up), then I gave her a large fuzzie in the hopes she would eat. Well she ate 3 fuzzies!!!! She is very calm and doesn't mind being held although we don't plan on holding her that much for now. We want her to relax and recover more than anything right now. We will feed her small frequent meals for now and move up as she wants to.
11/11/99
Koko seems to be doing fine so far. She is out frequently exploring her clean surroundings. I took her out and misted her with Vita-Spray to help clear up her dry skin (this has electrolytes in it). We'll do this once a day.
12/10/99
Koko is now eating 2 mice every 4 to 5 days. I am soon going to move her to small rats for the nutritional value. She is putting on weight although still far behind what she should look like at her age.
UPDATE: June 2000, Growing by leaps and bounds ~ she is a funny little girl...very fussy & still jumpy & shy. We call her Trixie now because there are only certain conditions in which she will eat...stinker. However, she has gone from around a 1 pound malnourished young adult to her current weight which is 1035 grams! Her skin is now smooth & shiny and she sheds with no problems. She is active and happy. We have not called her "Skinny Minnie" in a long time. |
