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07.09.02
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On our way back from our vacations my girlfriend and I stopped by at Muenster, where we went to the "Terraristic-Total". This was the first time we've been there and you'll soon find a report on it on gartersnake.de. Like I have already mentioned, we have bought some new animals on this fair. A great part of them we had already ordered in advance but some we have bought spontaneously, because they fitted perfectly in our breeding-plans. The animals we had ordered in advance are : 2,2 radix het for the albino classicline and pos.het for albino purple blotched. They were all captive bred in 2001. Besides that I got a 0,1 anerythristic radix captive bred 2000, also pos.het. for albino purple blotched. My girlfriend bought 1,1 captive bred 2002 cyrtopsis occelatus, that are a mix between cyrtopsis cyrtopsis and cyrtopsis occelatus. Those are beautiful animals and you can hardly see the cyrtopsis cyrtopsis part in them. Besides those, I saw a 1,0 melanistic sirtalis sirtalis captive bred 2000 that I just had to buy and 1,1 captive bred radix albino classicline. All those animals moved into their new homes and really seem to like it there. You could tell that the little albinotic radix hadn't had anything to drink in quite a while because they too a big zip before exploring the new terrarium. |
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08.09.02
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Today Nina and I cleaned the teraria, which was absolutely necessary... The anerytristic female was hiding the whole day but when I saw her I knew why: her eyes are cloudy.
The melanistic sirtalis sirtalis was extremely active today and crawled around in the terrarium the whole day. I'm very happy that I bought him! I had a premier in my 5 year snake-keeper life today. One of my snakes bit me! The similis didn't like to be taken out of her home and decided she'd tell me that and bit me. At first I didn't notice but when I turned my hand a little, I saw her chewing on my skin. After pressing her head a little she stopped that but that didn't keep her from biting me once again! It didn't really hurt but it was bleeding quite a bit. Wonder what caused that animal to act like that!? After I had cleaned the terrarium I could put him back in and this time he didn't show any signs of aggressive behaviour. |
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09.09.02
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Heute möchte ich eine kleine Neuerung in diesem
Tagebuch bekannt geben: ab sofort werde ich auch die regelmäßig
stattfindenden Häutungen nicht mehr erwähnen, außer es sind
bei der Häutung irgendwelche Besonderheiten aufgetreten. Hiermit möchte
ich gewährleisten, dass auch weiterhin interessante Dingen in diesem
Tagebuch vermerkt werden und ich hierfür einen angemessenen Zeitaufwand
betreiben muss. Neu möchte ich einführen, dass ich kleine Bilder zu verschiedenen Problemen mit einbinde, um diese für den Leser verständlicher zu gestalten. |
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Addition to 08.09.02
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Here a picture I took one day after the incident. You can see the wounds from the bite of the simils.
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15.09.02
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Of course Nina and I could not resist going to the reptile-fair in Hamm again this year. Like we had expected it was pretty crowded again but very interesting for snake keepers. There were quite a few CB02 that had not yet been born in spring.
By coincidence I met another thamnophis-guy from Hamburg whom I had not known before. This guy then became kind of responsible for my purchase of two further snakes. We had some very interesting conversations and besides addresses of newly met people we took home 1,1 sirtalis tetrataenia. |
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16.09.02
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Everyone besides the new tetrataenia ate perfectly. |
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18.09.02
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When looking at the anerythrystic female I detected a strange bump in the last third of her body and I couldn’t explain where it was coming from. When palpating it I found out it is relatively soft and is probably situated in the middle of the body rather than being attached to the spinal column. |
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19.09.02
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Another not very nice observation: The new male tetrataenia that by the way is just about to shed started making noises when breathing. He also opens his mouth. I separated him from the female. What is more I took some pictures of the bumps my plains anerythrisic female has: 
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20.09.02
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took the male tetrataenia and the anerythristic animal to the vet today. After a complete examination of the anerythristic that included x-rays and ultra-sounds she said that the bumps are probably a constipation. Unfortunately she couldn’t massage the foreign body out and so I have to not feed her for two weeks and come see the vet again after that. At least the examination of the excrement showed the animals is not suffering from parasites.
Like I had expected the male tetrataenia has pneumonia. I will have to give him an antibiotic. The treatment will take 12 days – that is if it survives at all. Here the x-rays of the anerythristic female: 
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24.09.02
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The tetrataenia is still alive and slowly seems to recover. It shedded. |