Autumn and Winter busyness

Another well overdue update! Thanks for sticking with us snakey followers, and if you’re new to the crew, then welcome!

It has been a very busy autumn-winter season for us here in and out of the snake den! Throughout November and December we were out almost every week, using carpet pythons Chainsaw and Misha, and boas Tabitha, Talulah and Tyla, for a mixture of photo shoots and live events. It has been nice for Tabitha to get out as she usually stays home due to her massive bulk making her rather impractical for toting at events, and also difficult for most models to handle. However, when a job came in requiring a large snake to sit on the floor for a shoot she was the only choice for the job! And due to the nature of the method of photography being used by the client, we got called back twice more after the initial shoot! It was this same shoot that got Chainsaw out of his vivarium. Those of you who follow the blog or twitter will know that Chainsaw semi-retired last year when the flirtatious Tyla joined the team, since he doesn’t really like doing live events, and it is very important to us that all our animals enjoy their work and are not forced to do anything they do not want to do. So Chainsaw only does occasional photo shoots now, which he doesn’t seem to mind.

We debuted a new outfit at Cambridge’s famous Salon Rouge burlesque event, strutting our stuff in gorgeous Egyptian outfits that will hopefully get more calls. It was my first time using a wig with the snakes, and I must admit I was rather anxious that the snakes might attempt to pull it off, but thankfully all went smoothly and there were no mishaps to report!!

At home, Wotan the bullsnake and Ripper the California kingsnake are both fully into their brumation period now. This is a period of deep sleep they would naturally undertake in the wild when temperatures drop and food is scarce. It is also an important stage of their reproduction, necessary to stimulate the females’ ovulation in preparation from spring mating. I plan on pairing Wotan and Ripper to create what I believe could be a possible UK first- “King Bull” hybrid snake babies! There is a record of a wild hybrid of this combination being captured in 2005 but that’s all I can find in the literature on them, aside a few people possibly breeding them in the states. I’m quite excited!!