platedlizard | I love you, my sister.

Okay, so my lovely sister needed to use my computer yesterday, something about how the parent's computer was a piece of shit and wasn't letting her get on a certain site she needed for school. I let her borrow mine, and then remembered that switching between dialup and wi-fi does crazy, crazy things to my computer. I have no idea why. Even reseting all my defaults doesn't work. I think it's Eartlink's Outlook express, actually. When using the wi-fi I don't need it, but I do for dialup. I think when I try to go back to using the wi-fi Earthlink keeps trying to automatically hook up with whatever wi-fi signal is around, and not the one *I* want it to connect to. This results in my computer constantly kicking me off teh Internets until I figure out that Earthlink is trying to hook me up to the restraunt next to the book store, instead of the AT&T hotspot I want. I believe I'm probably banned from RoyalPanda by now. Or at least my computer is.

In other news, Ichigo my new ball python Is Not Pleased with pre-killed prey. Not At All. Yesterday I tried another warmed up defrosted rat pinky, this time scenting it with mouse poo, and the little brat sniffed it for six hours then went back to sleep. Since that was the second week I've had him with out eating, and since he's a baby (eight weeks old now) I had to get him a live mouse hopper today. A mouse hopper is an unweaned (but mobile and very cute) baby mouse. With soft white fur and a wiggly pink nose. That is now SNAKE FOOD. I felt so bad :(

Ichigo is going to get defrosted rat pinky next week again. We are going to be working on EATING PREKILLED, DAMMIT. I prefer to be keeping my snake food in the freezer, not a cage, thank you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We used to buy all of our pet snakes wiggling pinkies; they didn't even have fur yet or anything (provided the snake was small enough). Once they got older, we moved on to live mice. I had pet mice as a kid, and the ones I kept had names, but the ones we got for the purpose of feeding (even though they lived with the other mice) never had names. I dunno, I was never squeamish about it. My dad just explained that it was the way it went, and I was okay with it. I even droped the pinkies/mice in there and watched, eagerly, until the snakes ate. I wanted to see the moment they got the mouse--it was like watching Discovery Channel or something (not that I even knew what that was until I got into high school, we didn't have cable until then). XDDDD I'm MORBID.

Id be too tempted to add soundtrack/commentary >.>...
Something abit 2001-ish?

In high school I volunteered at the local zoo's birds of prey program, so feeding prekilled rodents (and day old chicks) has never bothered me. We even had to cut them up for training pieces, and trust me, the rat guts do not smell good.

Other than crickets for my lizards, though, I've never fed live before, so it was kinda...not really upsetting per se, but a bit disturbing. The cute little hopper went from tottering around and cleaning it's nose to snake fud in an instant. I've killed mice before, predator control at the zoo was important, but somehow killing a wild mouse is different. I'm over it now. I think.

Ichigo is still going to have to learn to eat pre-killed, though. It's a heck of a lot safer for snakes. If a snake doesn't eat a live mouse or rat right away the rodent can actually end up eating the snake, I've seen pictures where snakes have been horribly skinned by their food chewing on them. Snakes won't 'defend' themselves, in the wild rodents avoid them, so they haven't adapted to defending themselves against being nibbled on by a mouse. Also, buying a package of frozen mice is cheaper than buying the same amount alive.

/pet lecture

I love you, my sister.

no subject

no subject

no subject