Hallo, I'm New Here

Hello, I'm Kate. I've never actually joined a website for any specific animal community before, so I'm probably going to do a bit of lurking for the first few days. Regardless, I'm excited to be here.

I'm twenty years old, currently finishing out the last semester I will be spending at VCU, and working towards moving into a small place with the boyfriend and all that. I was very unenthused with the VCU Arts program, so I'm switching gears and hopping on an online degree track. I'm also going to be working in child care again, which is actually the focus of my degree. I figure, hey, we all have to work with other people in this world. I might as well work with the small, easily-read, drama-free ones.

Aside from the obvious hobby of caring for and interacting with my snakes, I enjoy doing a number of things. Quite a bit of them would be considered "Arty". I draw things, sew things, sculpt and otherwise craft a wide array of things. I also greatly enjoy reading and playing boardgames, [Settlers of Catan, Dixit, Revolution!,ect] as well as card games, [MTG, Netrunner]. I also enjoy walks and going out to places like Maymont and Belle Isle, as well as sometimes swinging a foam sword around at a Dagorhir event.


I never owned a snake before last October, so I was a little nervous. The deal sort of fell into my lap from a friend of a friend, and I ended up getting a two-going-on-three year old sunrise rat snake. I believe he called her morph sunrise, though I'm still new to all the breeding terminology. I'm looking to brush up, though, which is one of the reasons I'm glad I got around to joining this site.
She's around three foot long, and has dark reddish brown colors, with red and some orange showing through. She's also got a bit of lavender on her belly. He mentioned she was het for albino, and was the product of a great plains rat snake and a black rat snake. I don't know their morphs.
He had tried to catch a wave of people being interested in rat/corn morphs, and obtained her through another breeder friend of his. I guess things didn't pan out for him, and I ended up getting her, along with her twenty gallon tank set up for $60 USD. I've added a few things to her tank since then, and she's eating and shedding fine, so I assume I'm doing a good job.

The second snake I actually came into possession of just a few days ago. I found him through a Craigslist add, and managed to get him and his twenty gallon set up for free. The owner was moving and just wanted his snake to go off to a good home. When I picked the snake up, I was concerned with the condition of the tank. It had clearly not been getting cleaned with any sort of frequency [molding, buried feces and a strong stench], and there were bugs [little flies/gnats] hopping around. Thankfully the snake didn't have mites, which I was worried about when I saw the initial state of things.
I've overhauled the tank, scrubbed it inside and out, put in new bedding, and threw out the old hide and water dish. I replaced both, put in some fake vines so he can climb and get some exercise. I feel he may be slightly overweight, but I won't worry about that unless anything goes wrong. I figure the slightly smaller food and more things to climb on will start fixing anything.
He is an eight year old Amel, I think, corn snake. He's got very bright colors, and nice red eyes. So far, he seems to be enjoying the new arrangements. I'm not positive about any of his genetics as the previous owner didn't care about any of that.

Well, I'm sure that's long-winded enough. I'll try and get pictures up ASAP.

Welcome,

Welcome~ Be sure to post pics of the babies.

Welcome!

Welcome!! Hey, if you would have registered yesterday, you would have been the 777th member on St. Patty's Day . That has to be good luck.

Welcome!

Hi

welcome....

Okay, so I took a few pictures of my snakes. They aren't the best, but I'm not that great with taking pictures. I've also decided to link them because I didn't want to page stretch or make an obnoxiously long post.

Corn's Coloring
Corn's Face
Corn on the Floor

Rat's Face
Rat's Coloring

I'm feeding them both a large mouse [thinking of moving to young rats soon for ease since I may just start breeding my own food] every other week. This was what their previous owners had them on, and I'm wondering if that's okay?

That Corn is beautiful, i rescued a little albino about 2 months ago was trying to rehome it before i moved offered it for free no one wanted to pick it up. So i was going to rehome it here after the move and my wife feel in love with it. So i only have one colubrid in my collection. BEAUTIFUL snake dear. and I'm new here aswell not only to the forums but to VA aswell.

I know! I really wish I knew his genetics, and I'm hoping to possibly breed him once or so before letting him enjoy old age. I still need to find a female I'd want to pair with him though, since I'm not so sure if I should attempt breeding my female rat snake to him. I've gotten mixed results on breeding rat and corn snakes - Was actually going to poke into the heads of some people here about that at some point.