Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been keeping boids for about a year now and I acquired my first Pit this past weekend (herps, pits, it seems all my hobbies have unsavory-sounding names ). I purchased a normal '03 female bullsnake from Hopyard Herps while attending the NY Metro Reptile Expo in White Plains NY. I decided to name her Ginger based on coloration and Pituophis personality Her parents are supposedly triple het for whatever bulls are het for and I saw her clutch mates and they did indeed display a great variety of morphs. She's presently in a 20 long on newspaper with carboard boxes and fake plants to hide under. Heat is provided by a UTH and lamp. She was pretty calm while I handled her before purchasing and she spent her first night home exploring. For the next few days she decided to hide during the day, occaisonally peeking out to watch me while I worked at the desk across the room, but I often saw her in the early AM while it was still dark. Yesterday she was out in the open for most of the day and today she was out for most of the day. She doesn't seem too timid and sizes me up when I approach the tank and she follows my finger if I move it along the outside glass. Today I was cleaning the cage of the boa on the shelf below the bull tank and she rattled her tail at me and retreated into a box but continued to observe me. Later in the day it became necessary for me to move her cage into another room for safety reasons. She was still in her box so I was just going to pick up the box and slide her into a secure container while I moved her tank. Well that didn't work because when I picked up the box out came a hissing, rattling, striking, non-cooperative bullsnake. I find the hissing and rattling quite charming, even hilarious but I did not sucessfully capture the snake and had to move the cage snake and all and the snake has not been seen for the rest of the day. Other than that little incident she seems to be settling in well and I'm going to try feeding her a pre-killed mouse later this weekend so hopefully I'll have lots of bullsnake stories to share in the near future

Hello! Cute story, those pits can definetly show attitude! I love my pines for that fact alone. Though I must handle them too much, been some time since one of them even hissed at me...Oh well! Though this past spring when checked on in hibernation the younger male pine sure hissed like crazy when checked in on, sounded like someone popped a car tire! His mouth was wide open and he was ready to strike! Whoops! guess he didn't like getting woke up!
Russell

It is sometimes surprising that some specimens are willing to eat when they seem so high strung. Usually if you have an Elaphe(well, I guess Pantherophis now...) or Lampropeltis that is really high strung, they won't eat in your prescence and may let go of their food if startled. Pits on the other hand may often be hissing and puffing at you while swallowing their food at the same time!!! I have a few gophers and a Northern Pine that will do that. I give them their food, they grab it , and then if they get distrubed by me moving about the other cages and start telling me off while they're in the process of eating, but don't let it stop them. I try to feed those specimens last so they don't get disturbed, though.