My Black Milk Jade seems to be a different girl... two weeks ago today I retrieved her from my son and his girlfriends home... Jade was there for breeding purposes with Nate's male Sonny. For the two weeks she's been back she's been the same old girl... until tonight.



Following my same routine for taking her out of her enclosure for feeding... namely opening the door and letting her crawl out on her own... when I attempted to pick her up she threshed around madly, unheard of for her, getting her under control I sat down on the couch with her thinking to calm her down... she headed right for the spaces between the cushions, grabbing hold of her I attempted to stop her from heading for the innards of the couch... no such luck, trying to keep hold and simply outlast her in the struggle I was rewarded with being musked... something she has never done... fearing I might hurt any eggs she may be carrying I simply let her go, flipped the couch on it's back, cut the fabric on the bottom side and extracted her. Wrapping her around my neck as I usually do when first taking her from her enclosure I put things back in order.



After that I go back to the usual feeding routine... she refuses the meal... something I can never recall happening in the five plus years I've had her.



I made the attempted breeding this year hoping to avoid the very flighty behavior she exhibited last year from April until August... always pacing the enclosure, night and day looking for a way out... taking a little longer to eat but always doing so within 10 minutes... acting a little skiddish but never trashing about while holding her.



Long story short... sort of ... what a nut job! Certainly no improvement from last years antics... I've only had one other captive snake musk me before, my own poly about three weeks after getting him... being musked by an 18" inch snake is very different than being musked by one that's a little better than 72"... holy crap... sort to speak.



She better have eggs if this is what I have to look forward to during the "together" time I put in with her and my other snakes.



Good thing it's all good



Gerry

[ Show Entire Thread ]