Rileys post

Greetings! A blog post from the other fledgelings from the nest (Riley). I am taking this chance to brag about my hobby of keeping pets. But first I must apologise for the mess I have made of this blog. I absolutely HATE the setup of these blogs. I had a terrible time trying to get my pictures on and kept accidentally deleting them. Finally I gave up on organization and put my pictures on indiscriminately.

The corn snakes you see are two of my favourite pets. their is a male and a female. The males name is Julius Squeezer and the females is Scarlet. I got them as hatching's on August 30, 2009. That makes them about 5 months old.

In the plastic container pictures are before and after pictures. The one below the other is when I first got them and the one above is from a few days ago. They have both grown about 4 inches and will eventually get about 3-5 feet in length. Not your largest snake but impressive enough.

In two of the pictures you see Julius climbing on the handle of a door and then their is another picture of him climbing up in between the door without any support. This is a small example of their athleticism. I had to put clamps on their cage lid because they kept inch worming their way up the corner of the cage, pushing up the lid and escaping. They are constrictors and are quite Strong. Their is also a picture of Scarlet trying to be a hat on my head.

Their is also several pictures of my fire bellied toads. I got them for Christmas last year. They are very pretty and entertaining. You can tell I had fun designing their cage.

The picture of the Betta is a fellow I just got a few days ago. The plant in his boll is a live plant called a Java fern. He has been very entertaining to watch. Especially when you put a mirror up to him.

And lastly my least favorite pet. the garter snake at the top used to be my favorite but now he is about a year and a half older and a lot bigger and nastier. The cute thing in the picture is now about two feet long and has a grumpy disposition. He or she (I don't know which because it's wild caught) is relatively docile if you have been holding it for a wile but if you wake him\her up you might get bitten. Just yesterday I caught a night crawler for it and brought it up and the little devil bit me, then musked ( a nasty thing, garter snakes are somewhat like skunks in that respect, secreting a nasty smelling liquid when first caught, startled, or in this case just plane mean) then ate the worm. How is that for thanks? I am going to let it go this spring when it warm up more.

Snakes

These are the newest editions to the family.

We went to Indianapolis to the reptile show at the state fair grounds.

It was another world, along with seeing a lot of slithering and scampering things we got our fill of tattooed bodies, and Pierced tongs, yuck! It felt like we went into one of those side shows you pay to get into, and we did five bucks a Piece, it was an experience we will never forget.

Oh yeah remember me asking what could go wrong with buying a snake?, well we found out on the first night. One got out. But no worries we found him.

Riley says;

I love my new snakes. They are so beautiful. I could sit and look at them all day. I have already named the male Julius Squeezer because they are constrictors, but I haven't come up with a good snake name for the female.

I would like the name to have a historic link and it to be funny. I would love suggestions please.

At the snake show I was in haven. Their was so many snakes and frogs and insects there. Some frogs a big as a small plate, some tiny poison dart frogs, tarantulas, and bearded dragons galore . I had a blast.

The pet dilemma

My son loves animals, he would live at the pet store if we left him there, I'm sure the owners wouldn't mind, He would gladly handle each one of the animals to tame them and even clean their cages.

but I think they wouldn't want to feed him. Riley likes to eat large quantities of healthy food, No pop tarts for him!

Last spring our neighbor told us about a man who kept pigeons and would give him some of his pigeons who didn't do this trick, (they do flips) very well. They are very amusing to watch.

Well, this Sunday Riley left the cage open and the pigeons wouldn't cooperate and go back in so we had to leave them out, and of course they got ate, and now we have the babies to take care of.

I hate feeding baby birds, they don't do well in my care, and Riley isn't any better at it,

So here is my dilemma do I take them to the local bird lady Diana Freedman, who always ends up with any baby bird I find, Last year it was cardinals, I just couldn't let them die. or take my chances, Riley has decided he doesn't care for birds very much.

the funny part is he wants a corn snake now so bad he can't see straight. What could go wrong with a corn snake?