Introducing the almighty Amazon Tree Boa
I feel like CRAP right now. I just lost my very very favourite tree boa. I got her only a MONTH ago and she was the most amazing-looking tree boa I've ever seen. Never thought I could own one like that. I got my hands on her kind of semi-accidentally: I have this really odd-coloured male from a Swedish breeder but I didn't buy it straight from him. I got him from someone here in Finland.
However, I found the breeder's email and wrote him I was interested in similar animals if he ever happened to have any for sale. He said he was kind of giving up on tree boas because he's more into boa constrictors which take up most of his space. Because of that he said he could even sell me adult animals. (Which is of course better because I don't have to wait for 3-4 years for them to be breedable.)
One of them was an absolute screamer. Solid bright yellow female with dark burgundy eyes. I've seen a LOT of pictures of tree boas all over the world but I had NEVER seen one like that. I told him I'd definitely buy that one. -However, he replied that he doesn't do single animal deals (which is not unheard of amongst bigger reptile breeders) and that he'd only sell them as a trio.
So yeah, I bought the whole fucking trio (without even seeing proper pictures of the two other snakes) JUST to get the yellow one. In other words, it ended up being a pretty expensive one. Besides the price of the three snakes, I paid for my and Jouni's trip to Sweden. (Didn't want to travel alone so I promised to pay for J's ticket/food/everything if he'd join me. Besides, he's a lot more experienced snakekeeper, so I also had a kind of a second opinion with me.)
And now, the snake that I did this for, just randomly decided to fucking die.
I was heading for the fridge this morning when I noticed that she was rolling on the bottom of her enclosure. She had her mouth wide open and I could see that the inside of her mouth was all blue. Not a good sign. I immediately took her out of her tank and took her into the bathroom. I kept her under a stream of warm water, helped her drink a bit and washed the dirt off her mouth and tried to reach my snake vet OR the local vet emergency number.
Before nobody answered, the snake went limp on my hands.
At the moment I can't help feeling that I simply want to give up keeping and breeding boas. I am very poor at handling these situations. Deaths are fine as long as they aren't all mysterious like this one! Now I just keep blaming myself for doing something wrong.
That's why I wanted to write this entry. Not to whine about my bad luck but to cherish my snakes! I want myself to remember I own some really incredible snakes and it's a priviledge to keep them. If someone else even considered selling a collection like this, I'd kick them in the knee cap because it would be simply moronic.
All of these animals are Amazon tree boas. (Corallus hortulanus) The endless amount of colour and pattern combinations is what I find the most fascinating about them. At the moment there's only two proven genetic patterns, everything else is just luck since we're talking about a polymorphic species.
KÄNKKÄRÄNKKÄ
This one here is my first Amazon tree boa, Känkkäränkkä. Her name translates as something like Crankyass. She's still the worst-tempered snake I've ever encountered. A 100% sure biter - she never misses you. ;) It's a wonder such monstrous creature EVER managed to hook me on this species.
I got her real cheap because she was simply too much for her previous owner.
She's also a great example on how these fellows can change their color drastically with age. This is how she looked when I got her 4 years ago. You wouldn't believe it's the same animal, would you?
She's kind of a pygmy so I haven't bred her. However, I showed her to her breeder a couple of weeks ago and he said that the mother of this one never grew much bigger either, so I might give it a try next year.
KURPITSA
Kurpitsa's name translates as Pumpkin, which was her color when I got her. Back in the days I had a similar-colored tree boa from the same breeder, but I lost her when I had a IBD (retrovirus found in boas and pythons) sweeping off my collection.
This is my darlin' Kurpitsa. She has developed black specking since I got her and now resembes a rotting pumpkin.
This is how she looked when I was buying her, so I think her colours just keep getting nicer and nicer with age:
MAURI
Mauri is my first boy. A guy from Kankaanpää (where I'm from) contacted me about tree boas. He had two and he said that at least one of them had to go. We ended up doing a trade. I got this one and he got a mexican black kingsnake.
This is Mauri when I got him. He was kind of mustard yellow with brown patterns back then.
This is him now. He has started to grow weird salmon-pink areas. Their amount seems to increase every time he sheds. Interesting! I believe he can turn out really interesting.
I should really take new pictures of him. I have awesome shots of almost every single one of my snakes but for some reason I haven't photographed this one that much. :/
HÅKAN
Håkan.. my little escape artist! Håkan and Mauri decided to go on a runaway once. Mauri was easy to find but Håkan was missing for two full months. I had turned my apartment upside down at least a dozen times when I eventually gave up and declared him missing in action.
Maybe a week after that, I saw a note in hallway saying my neighbour had found a small snake in her apartment. Unfortunately she had panicked and thrown the poor creature out of the window! From the third floor! At that point, I gave up all hope. However, two weeks after that I was taking the trash out when Håkan greeted me with a flickering tongue. :D
Håkan is kind of pink and cute:
...But also a great example on how the colours don't always improve with age. This is how he looked when I got him:
But I really the pink. <3 Besides, his pink form is something that the tree boa community has never seen before so everybody is pretty excited about him.
JOONAS
Joonas is a biiiig boy. Usually females grow larger, but Joonas is kind of huge. Amazon tree boas are notorious for their chompers. The last time I took a good strong bite from an adult tree boa, she sank her teeth all the way to my bone.
Regardless of this, Joonas is the only atb I freehandle without bleeding. He's such a sweetie! I know that he has some respectable weaponry in there, but he has never even tried to strike at me.
The snake that died today was supposed to be Joonas' girlfriend next spring. :/ I'm sure they would have produced some killer babies. Oh well...
Sometimes he can look a bit mean though:
GÖRAN
Göran is the male of the notorious Swedish trio. I've only had him for a month so I don't have much to say about his personality, for example. He seems a bit shy.
Peek-a-boo!
PERNILLA
The other female of the trio. I must admit that she's also one of the best looking tree boas I've seen. I'm glad to own her and I hope that whatever killed the yellow one doesn't sweep off this one as well. Of course I have housed them separately but ast they are from the same place.... I can't know about the hygiene there.
What I really dig about her is her yellow belly. Usually they have a solid white underside.
MAISA
I wasn't planning to get a new one, but I was visiting Kurpitsa's breeder when he foooooooooorced me to take this baby home with me. She's actually Kurpitsa's sister but a LOT smaller. Apparently she had a rough start and had to be force fed for a couple of times.
She's such a pretty little girl.
EVE
I bought a new solid yellow from Hamm, Germany just a couple of weeks ago. I don't have pictures of her yet because I'm quarantining her at work. She's exactly like the one that just died but her eyes are more like amber/bronze-colored. Of course you can never tell how they turn out when she's fully grown.
I hope I can keep this one. It seems that I have bad luck with yellows. The last solid yellow (with GREEN eyes) died only a month after I got her.
A pity, because I like solid yellow best!
I hope that by only writing this (and by going through a lot of pictures) gets my thoughts to my other amazing snakes instead of just dwelling on the one that passed away today.
Because they really mean the world to me.
However, I found the breeder's email and wrote him I was interested in similar animals if he ever happened to have any for sale. He said he was kind of giving up on tree boas because he's more into boa constrictors which take up most of his space. Because of that he said he could even sell me adult animals. (Which is of course better because I don't have to wait for 3-4 years for them to be breedable.)
One of them was an absolute screamer. Solid bright yellow female with dark burgundy eyes. I've seen a LOT of pictures of tree boas all over the world but I had NEVER seen one like that. I told him I'd definitely buy that one. -However, he replied that he doesn't do single animal deals (which is not unheard of amongst bigger reptile breeders) and that he'd only sell them as a trio.
So yeah, I bought the whole fucking trio (without even seeing proper pictures of the two other snakes) JUST to get the yellow one. In other words, it ended up being a pretty expensive one. Besides the price of the three snakes, I paid for my and Jouni's trip to Sweden. (Didn't want to travel alone so I promised to pay for J's ticket/food/everything if he'd join me. Besides, he's a lot more experienced snakekeeper, so I also had a kind of a second opinion with me.)
And now, the snake that I did this for, just randomly decided to fucking die.
I was heading for the fridge this morning when I noticed that she was rolling on the bottom of her enclosure. She had her mouth wide open and I could see that the inside of her mouth was all blue. Not a good sign. I immediately took her out of her tank and took her into the bathroom. I kept her under a stream of warm water, helped her drink a bit and washed the dirt off her mouth and tried to reach my snake vet OR the local vet emergency number.
Before nobody answered, the snake went limp on my hands.
At the moment I can't help feeling that I simply want to give up keeping and breeding boas. I am very poor at handling these situations. Deaths are fine as long as they aren't all mysterious like this one! Now I just keep blaming myself for doing something wrong.
That's why I wanted to write this entry. Not to whine about my bad luck but to cherish my snakes! I want myself to remember I own some really incredible snakes and it's a priviledge to keep them. If someone else even considered selling a collection like this, I'd kick them in the knee cap because it would be simply moronic.
All of these animals are Amazon tree boas. (Corallus hortulanus) The endless amount of colour and pattern combinations is what I find the most fascinating about them. At the moment there's only two proven genetic patterns, everything else is just luck since we're talking about a polymorphic species.
KÄNKKÄRÄNKKÄ
This one here is my first Amazon tree boa, Känkkäränkkä. Her name translates as something like Crankyass. She's still the worst-tempered snake I've ever encountered. A 100% sure biter - she never misses you. ;) It's a wonder such monstrous creature EVER managed to hook me on this species.
I got her real cheap because she was simply too much for her previous owner.
She's also a great example on how these fellows can change their color drastically with age. This is how she looked when I got her 4 years ago. You wouldn't believe it's the same animal, would you?
She's kind of a pygmy so I haven't bred her. However, I showed her to her breeder a couple of weeks ago and he said that the mother of this one never grew much bigger either, so I might give it a try next year.
KURPITSA
Kurpitsa's name translates as Pumpkin, which was her color when I got her. Back in the days I had a similar-colored tree boa from the same breeder, but I lost her when I had a IBD (retrovirus found in boas and pythons) sweeping off my collection.
This is my darlin' Kurpitsa. She has developed black specking since I got her and now resembes a rotting pumpkin.
This is how she looked when I was buying her, so I think her colours just keep getting nicer and nicer with age:
MAURI
Mauri is my first boy. A guy from Kankaanpää (where I'm from) contacted me about tree boas. He had two and he said that at least one of them had to go. We ended up doing a trade. I got this one and he got a mexican black kingsnake.
This is Mauri when I got him. He was kind of mustard yellow with brown patterns back then.
This is him now. He has started to grow weird salmon-pink areas. Their amount seems to increase every time he sheds. Interesting! I believe he can turn out really interesting.
I should really take new pictures of him. I have awesome shots of almost every single one of my snakes but for some reason I haven't photographed this one that much. :/
HÅKAN
Håkan.. my little escape artist! Håkan and Mauri decided to go on a runaway once. Mauri was easy to find but Håkan was missing for two full months. I had turned my apartment upside down at least a dozen times when I eventually gave up and declared him missing in action.
Maybe a week after that, I saw a note in hallway saying my neighbour had found a small snake in her apartment. Unfortunately she had panicked and thrown the poor creature out of the window! From the third floor! At that point, I gave up all hope. However, two weeks after that I was taking the trash out when Håkan greeted me with a flickering tongue. :D
Håkan is kind of pink and cute:
...But also a great example on how the colours don't always improve with age. This is how he looked when I got him:
But I really the pink. <3 Besides, his pink form is something that the tree boa community has never seen before so everybody is pretty excited about him.
JOONAS
Joonas is a biiiig boy. Usually females grow larger, but Joonas is kind of huge. Amazon tree boas are notorious for their chompers. The last time I took a good strong bite from an adult tree boa, she sank her teeth all the way to my bone.
Regardless of this, Joonas is the only atb I freehandle without bleeding. He's such a sweetie! I know that he has some respectable weaponry in there, but he has never even tried to strike at me.
The snake that died today was supposed to be Joonas' girlfriend next spring. :/ I'm sure they would have produced some killer babies. Oh well...
Sometimes he can look a bit mean though:
GÖRAN
Göran is the male of the notorious Swedish trio. I've only had him for a month so I don't have much to say about his personality, for example. He seems a bit shy.
Peek-a-boo!
PERNILLA
The other female of the trio. I must admit that she's also one of the best looking tree boas I've seen. I'm glad to own her and I hope that whatever killed the yellow one doesn't sweep off this one as well. Of course I have housed them separately but ast they are from the same place.... I can't know about the hygiene there.
What I really dig about her is her yellow belly. Usually they have a solid white underside.
MAISA
I wasn't planning to get a new one, but I was visiting Kurpitsa's breeder when he foooooooooorced me to take this baby home with me. She's actually Kurpitsa's sister but a LOT smaller. Apparently she had a rough start and had to be force fed for a couple of times.
She's such a pretty little girl.
EVE
I bought a new solid yellow from Hamm, Germany just a couple of weeks ago. I don't have pictures of her yet because I'm quarantining her at work. She's exactly like the one that just died but her eyes are more like amber/bronze-colored. Of course you can never tell how they turn out when she's fully grown.
I hope I can keep this one. It seems that I have bad luck with yellows. The last solid yellow (with GREEN eyes) died only a month after I got her.
A pity, because I like solid yellow best!
I hope that by only writing this (and by going through a lot of pictures) gets my thoughts to my other amazing snakes instead of just dwelling on the one that passed away today.
Because they really mean the world to me.