I've brought Cujo and Buddy, my pair of pink Texas Western Coachwhips, out of brumation and into their new deluxe cages. Club Med for coachwhips. Six feet long, 28 inches deep, two full-spectrum Lumichrome bulbs covering the center and one end, a UV bulb on for four hours in the morning near the heat bulb, axial fan pulling hot air from the basking end and fresh air in through a vent in the far end--the system allows the snakes to behave as they would in the wild, harvesting heat from radiant energy without causing the whole cage to get hot from heat creep.
The whips will be four years old this summer, and have developed that mature look--fullness of figure, fullness of facial bone structure. I plan to see if they will breed this year.
Cujo has already started sizing up my head, and both are looking spectacular in their large enclosures, moving around with room to stretch out. The snakes are about a foot shorter than the cages, and it's good to see them so liberated. They are getting more pink now, perhaps as a function of maturity, and I hope to enhance that with diet.
Big pink snakes--that's just good TV.
