There comes a time in every pet owners life when they feel they must gush about their newest addition. For me, it is time. Yes, I already wrote a post/impassioned plea about not fearing my little one, but did I mention how pretty she is? No. It's time to correct my egregious omission.
The silliest part of it all is that I was more than a little disappointed when I first brought Vixen home. For weeks before the dinkiest reptile show known to man--or at least me--I researched everything I could about corn snakes. I knew the care would be similar to what I gave Henrietta, but I wanted to make sure I would do whatever I could to make my little baby happy and healthy. Included in this research were hours and hours spent poring over pictures of corn snakes. How much time could that really take, you may ask? A lot. There are hundreds and hundreds of different corn snake morphs/colorations. You are probably aware that most animals have a normal coloration and a rarer albino form. Well Corn Snakes can greatly vary between and outside of these two opposites. Herp keepers have played around with an almost infinite variation of breeding pairs in the hopes of 'creating' a pretty new color to brag about. Yellow, black, grey, white, pink, purple, orange, red, brown--any of these colors could be found on a Corn Snake. Anyway, I managed to narrow down my morph preferences to a couple colorations. I even had names for them depending on their gender and color--a female lavender, a male normal, a male grey. An idea/preference for everything EXCEPT an orange and reddish female.
I was entered the smallest convention area I've ever seen, and forlornly discovered that about only two tables had any corn snakes on them at all. If I had been looking for a Ball Python, boy, would I have been lucky. There were absolutely no lavenders, my top choice. Who wouldn't want a pretty purple snake?--well, of those people who don't have a heart attack at the sight of any snake. After less time than I would have liked searching, I half-heartedly settled on a little girl whose first course of action upon me picking her up was to immediately attempt to dart her little head straight into my shirt. A really courageous one she was. She was smaller than any snake I had ever held and I was nervous like a new mother, afraid I might drop her delicate little body straight to her untimely death. I held a few others after her, but for some reason I felt drawn to this little one. She wasn't what I was looking for at all.
Even as the brave friends who had accompanied me drove me home from the reptile show, I stared at my new unnamed pet--who was trying to escape through the tiny airholes in her little deli-cup prison--and felt an uneasy queasiness in my stomach. Maybe in my eagerness to take home a new pet that very day (the next available show was months away) I had made a grave mistake. After all, Corn Snakes can live up to 15-20 years. Would I be saddled with my 'wrong' choice for a good portion of my adult life?
My confidence in my choice was not helped when I put her in her cage for the first time and she promptly disappeared, not to be seen for another week. While she explored/cowered in her new home I looked at my notes of possible snake names, which I had compiled a few days prior. All of the names were comic book inspired, to keep in the same style of the kitten I had helped name Nemesis (finally breaking the cycle of jazz legend cat names in the Churchfamily). The name Vixen jumped out at me for my new Corn. (Vixen is a fiesty superheroine who can channel the powers of any animal she wishes, by the way).
For the first week or so I left Vixen alone, only opening her cage to change her water. Not once did I try to move around her aspen-shavings bedding, or lift up her (intentioned) hide, to catch a peak of my recent purchase. Everything I had read had told me I should not put undue stress on a baby Corn by disturbing her right away. It was painful. All I wanted to do was to spend time with Vixen so that we could bond and I could get over my buyers remorse by falling in love with her. She did not make it easy. I waited a whole five days before I finally tried to pick her up for the first time. Ha!
I opened the cage and lifted up her hide. No Corn there. I moved around every square inch of her bedding, gradually becoming more panicked, as I slowly realized she wasn't there. I had lost my new pet. Maybe it wouldn't matter she wasn't the color I wanted. Maybe someday I would hear a shrill scream from one of my unfortunate apartment neighbors who had discovered an unwelcome gift hanging out near some kitchen or livingroom heat source. That would make me really popular at the Aspen. I rambled to Alex about ways to find escaped snakes, telling myself in vain not to panic--everything will be okay--don't worry Alex--I'll find her---I'll... Ahhhhh!!! That, my friends, was the sound of me shrieking as I poked something really squishy crammed in the hollow space that I didn't know existed in the Petsmart branch I had bought my then hypothetical Corn to climb on. I had discovered Vixen in her new favorite hiding place. Somehow this incident made me think I had named her correctly. Vixen was one malicious woman.
I eventually changed her branch to one without any hollow spaces and gave her a new hide, since the one I had originally bought her was clearly way to big for her to feel secure in. Like a cat who completely shuns the cat bed you buy for it and then curls up in a box, Vixen greatly preferred hiding under the lid of an Apple product box I had cut a few enter/exit holes into. And it made her so much more accessible. Lifting a box from a cage and grabbing the wriggly thing underneath is ten times easier than trying to pry a determined body from a tiny hiding space.
Okay, so the point of this post has gotten away from me a little bit. My original intention was to gush. What I've been leading you up to (completely intentionally of course) is how I've fallen in love with my baby, after much adversity. I was conditioned not to be happy with her color, and her hiding-in-terror-or-fleeing-at-the-sight-of-me behavior was not endearing to say the least, and yet I am now very happy that I bought her. Wha Happen'd?
The answer is two fold. One, after making her more accessible we have had numerous handling sessions. Quite a few have ended with her entire body in my shirt, or me hurriedly putting her back in her glass home when she has gotten too rowdy. But every so often, she will settle down on my shoulders, seeming to prefer being at the highest point she can find--she's my little tree climber--and we will watch TV together. During these calm moments I really feel like we're bonding. Two, I have come to really admire her colors. Yes, a purple snake would have been awfully purrty, but probably pretty boring compared to my Vixie. Over time, her colors have gotten more magnificent. With each new shed, some colors become more subtle and others begin to pop. Originally I had decided that if I did get an orangey Corn, I would want to see reds, oranges and yellows on it. It seemed at first that Vixter would only have red and orange. Luckily, the yellow that is on Vixen's neck has become more pronounced. She's my beautiful little sunrise. My citrus baby. My Vixen.
But don't just take my word for it. See for yourself.
In a few days Vixen will shed again. (That is part of the reason I made this post. The week before Vixen sheds she hides the whole time. Looking at pictures is the only way I can see her, which makes me unhappy.) I can't wait to see what subtle changes will come with her new skin.
And I can't wait for her to be adult sized. Then, there will be no way for her to hide from me!
The silliest part of it all is that I was more than a little disappointed when I first brought Vixen home. For weeks before the dinkiest reptile show known to man--or at least me--I researched everything I could about corn snakes. I knew the care would be similar to what I gave Henrietta, but I wanted to make sure I would do whatever I could to make my little baby happy and healthy. Included in this research were hours and hours spent poring over pictures of corn snakes. How much time could that really take, you may ask? A lot. There are hundreds and hundreds of different corn snake morphs/colorations. You are probably aware that most animals have a normal coloration and a rarer albino form. Well Corn Snakes can greatly vary between and outside of these two opposites. Herp keepers have played around with an almost infinite variation of breeding pairs in the hopes of 'creating' a pretty new color to brag about. Yellow, black, grey, white, pink, purple, orange, red, brown--any of these colors could be found on a Corn Snake. Anyway, I managed to narrow down my morph preferences to a couple colorations. I even had names for them depending on their gender and color--a female lavender, a male normal, a male grey. An idea/preference for everything EXCEPT an orange and reddish female.
I was entered the smallest convention area I've ever seen, and forlornly discovered that about only two tables had any corn snakes on them at all. If I had been looking for a Ball Python, boy, would I have been lucky. There were absolutely no lavenders, my top choice. Who wouldn't want a pretty purple snake?--well, of those people who don't have a heart attack at the sight of any snake. After less time than I would have liked searching, I half-heartedly settled on a little girl whose first course of action upon me picking her up was to immediately attempt to dart her little head straight into my shirt. A really courageous one she was. She was smaller than any snake I had ever held and I was nervous like a new mother, afraid I might drop her delicate little body straight to her untimely death. I held a few others after her, but for some reason I felt drawn to this little one. She wasn't what I was looking for at all.
Even as the brave friends who had accompanied me drove me home from the reptile show, I stared at my new unnamed pet--who was trying to escape through the tiny airholes in her little deli-cup prison--and felt an uneasy queasiness in my stomach. Maybe in my eagerness to take home a new pet that very day (the next available show was months away) I had made a grave mistake. After all, Corn Snakes can live up to 15-20 years. Would I be saddled with my 'wrong' choice for a good portion of my adult life?
My confidence in my choice was not helped when I put her in her cage for the first time and she promptly disappeared, not to be seen for another week. While she explored/cowered in her new home I looked at my notes of possible snake names, which I had compiled a few days prior. All of the names were comic book inspired, to keep in the same style of the kitten I had helped name Nemesis (finally breaking the cycle of jazz legend cat names in the Churchfamily). The name Vixen jumped out at me for my new Corn. (Vixen is a fiesty superheroine who can channel the powers of any animal she wishes, by the way).
For the first week or so I left Vixen alone, only opening her cage to change her water. Not once did I try to move around her aspen-shavings bedding, or lift up her (intentioned) hide, to catch a peak of my recent purchase. Everything I had read had told me I should not put undue stress on a baby Corn by disturbing her right away. It was painful. All I wanted to do was to spend time with Vixen so that we could bond and I could get over my buyers remorse by falling in love with her. She did not make it easy. I waited a whole five days before I finally tried to pick her up for the first time. Ha!
I opened the cage and lifted up her hide. No Corn there. I moved around every square inch of her bedding, gradually becoming more panicked, as I slowly realized she wasn't there. I had lost my new pet. Maybe it wouldn't matter she wasn't the color I wanted. Maybe someday I would hear a shrill scream from one of my unfortunate apartment neighbors who had discovered an unwelcome gift hanging out near some kitchen or livingroom heat source. That would make me really popular at the Aspen. I rambled to Alex about ways to find escaped snakes, telling myself in vain not to panic--everything will be okay--don't worry Alex--I'll find her---I'll... Ahhhhh!!! That, my friends, was the sound of me shrieking as I poked something really squishy crammed in the hollow space that I didn't know existed in the Petsmart branch I had bought my then hypothetical Corn to climb on. I had discovered Vixen in her new favorite hiding place. Somehow this incident made me think I had named her correctly. Vixen was one malicious woman.
I eventually changed her branch to one without any hollow spaces and gave her a new hide, since the one I had originally bought her was clearly way to big for her to feel secure in. Like a cat who completely shuns the cat bed you buy for it and then curls up in a box, Vixen greatly preferred hiding under the lid of an Apple product box I had cut a few enter/exit holes into. And it made her so much more accessible. Lifting a box from a cage and grabbing the wriggly thing underneath is ten times easier than trying to pry a determined body from a tiny hiding space.
Okay, so the point of this post has gotten away from me a little bit. My original intention was to gush. What I've been leading you up to (completely intentionally of course) is how I've fallen in love with my baby, after much adversity. I was conditioned not to be happy with her color, and her hiding-in-terror-or-fleeing-at-the-sight-of-me behavior was not endearing to say the least, and yet I am now very happy that I bought her. Wha Happen'd?
The answer is two fold. One, after making her more accessible we have had numerous handling sessions. Quite a few have ended with her entire body in my shirt, or me hurriedly putting her back in her glass home when she has gotten too rowdy. But every so often, she will settle down on my shoulders, seeming to prefer being at the highest point she can find--she's my little tree climber--and we will watch TV together. During these calm moments I really feel like we're bonding. Two, I have come to really admire her colors. Yes, a purple snake would have been awfully purrty, but probably pretty boring compared to my Vixie. Over time, her colors have gotten more magnificent. With each new shed, some colors become more subtle and others begin to pop. Originally I had decided that if I did get an orangey Corn, I would want to see reds, oranges and yellows on it. It seemed at first that Vixter would only have red and orange. Luckily, the yellow that is on Vixen's neck has become more pronounced. She's my beautiful little sunrise. My citrus baby. My Vixen.
But don't just take my word for it. See for yourself.
 |
| Vixen about two months ago |
 |
| Vixen a week ago. |
 |
| The yellow/ yellowish-orange on her neck/first half is getting more yellow. I am happy. |
And I can't wait for her to be adult sized. Then, there will be no way for her to hide from me!
No comments:
Post a Comment