Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I cannot believe how cruel some people are.. I am just going to tell you the whole story... I had a dwarf caiman I was trying to get rid of, because I was wanting a spectacled caiman. Well I was not having any good luck with trade or selling at a show and finally this one guy had traded someone else for an albino male burm. He ran me down and told me about it and so I went to look at it. The guy that he traded with must have not fed this thing for about 2-3months. It is 7 feet long. I don't think it was affered much water either. Well any ways this was the best offer for the caiman I have had yet so I decided, although it was bad underweight I would do it. Well I got home and put it in a medium sized plastics box for temporary use for about a week or so. it immediately ate 2 rats (large) and after that I put about 2 inches of water in the box and it drank for over 20 minutes. It had to have been dehydrated because It seemed to have already put some meat on its bones. After about 30 minutes of soaking there was onely abot half an inche of water left. I now have it in the same box with paper towels and will soon build a permanent inclosure. It is a euty in color even though you can see the protruding back bone and ribs. I will feed it a lil more at evey feeding till it gets to a good weight. That is weird though because I was not at all expecting to bring home a 7 foot burmese. I don't want to post pics of it because I'm almost embarassed at the way it looks. I don't understand how osmeone can be so cruel. But it is not the first time I've seen underweight animals and it will not be the last. I'll post pics when it looks better, unless someone wants to see how bad it does look. It does not look as bad as it did and I've only had it a few hours. It has a great temperment. I love it.
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Justin

I did almost the same thing as you. Well in my case I wasnt trading any animal but found an add posted in the classified for a free male albino 7 foot around my way. So I go and pick him up, he has feeding problems. Well the feeding problem was that the 1st owner didnt feed him for 10 months, took horrible care of him and so on. Well the guy I got him from was a breeder of other snakes so i doubt he had time to work with him, plus he was the biggest snake in the collection so he wasnt gettin the right food. Anyway I take him home and measure and hes acually 10 foot, but wayy underweight. For the 1st 3 weeks or so I tried with rats but he just wouldnt go. Well in the past 2 weeks he's eaten 2 1.5 pound rabbits and 3 1 pound rats. I think it was just the owners, not the snakes but i could be wrong. Sorry for the long post but yea go ahead and put some pics up of the snake...

Yes it is the owners and not the snakes. This one ate the 2 large rats without a care in the world. Why would someone ever go for 10 months without feeding a snake. That is stupid. I'll post pics of it tomarrow. It already looks almost normal after getting the water in it and the 2 rats in it.
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Justin

If he was obviously the type who neglected his animals why in the world did you let him get his hands on your caiman? If you wanted the burm, you should have just bought it...not give him something else to kill.
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1.4 Columbians
2.7 Kenyans
0.3 Ball Pythons
1.0 Borneo Blood
0.0.2 Blue Tounged Skinks
3 Dogs
3 Cats
1 Ferret
1 Wife

Oh it was not the same guy. You see he previously traded something else for the python and that guy was gone by the time the guy told me that he had the snake. This guy I traded my caiman to is an expert. He has had years of experience with reptiles and knows exactly what he is doing. I would not dare let anyone that can't take care of a burm have my caiman(that I got attached to). I don't know why I did not grab a business card. I wish I should have because I'd like to know how it is doing from time to time. I could understand exactly where you are coming from though.
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Justin