I don’t feel like typing it all out again, since it’s too hard, so I’ll just copy and paste my LJ entry.
–
I was giving all my snakes water Tues morning, and cleaning their cages of poo and sheds. Jimmy was watching, and as I was about to pour water into Lenore’s water dish (Lenore being the beautiful orange and salmon baby I got in June) . . .
“Um, that one doesn’t look like it’s moving.”
“What?! Oh fuck, you’re right.”
So I took off the lid to her cage, moved her hide, and poked her. Yeah . . . dead.
The horrible thing is, I don’t know exactly when she died. I saw her moving around on Wends, and days before. My sister came up to visit Thurs-Sat. Cody and I had Solstice on Sunday, so I didn’t get to bed until around 10am on Monday. Woke up around 11pm that night, played some video games and putzed around online. Finally got around to watering and such. I was going to feed everyone, too (which I did - the ones who’d eat, anyway. Three said No Thanks. It’s winter.). So . . . I really don’t know what day she died.
To distract myself, I went ahead and tried to feed everyone, almost getting bitten by my 2 y/o male, Spooky, who has the stongest feeding response of any snake I know. It’s frikkin scary. It’s not so much that I’m afraid of being bitten by him, really - his head’s a little bigger than my thumb, which means he probably wouldn’t draw much blood, if any - it’s just that he’s so FAST. And that as soon as he gets hungry, he’ll try to eat your hand once he knows it’s feeding time (when I put him in his feedy box).
Sorry, I’m rambling.
I waited for Cody to get home before we did anything with Lenore, since I just couldn’t do it by myself. We went out to the forest behind our apt and found a little hole in the ground (no shovel), put her in there, and covered her in leaves. The way a little Ball Python would hide in nature.
Oh man, I’m crying again.
It’s so hard to look into her empty little aquarium. I haven’t cleaned it out yet, because that’s so hard to do.
I don’t really know how she died. She’s always been a difficult eater, not a surprise for BPs. It can also be a sign of internal parasites. BUT I did get her to eat on a fairly regular schedule (after having to assist feed her several times, she finally started to eat on her own). I . . . just don’t know what killed her.
To me, one of the worst things about when a BP dies is that I know that they can live anywhere from 20-50 years. And she was only about 7 months old. I really wanted to see her as an adult. She would’ve been so beautiful, all full grown. And she was such a sweety.
I have to stop now.
