(TW: Ophidiophobia, Snakes)
Lately, my happiness has been an incredibly fragile thing. Seasonal depression has swept it and replaced my everyday depression with fancy Christmas and winter depression. The only things that have lessened this so far, are acquiring tickets to the Citizen Soldier show in Chicago in April, as well as a very unexpected new addition to my family.
If you don’t like snakes, please click off, and I’ll catch you in the next one. But, if you don’t mind small, 6mo corn snakes, feel free to stay and enjoy the photos.
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This sweet little face here belongs to Hades, a six-month-old corn snake who Pip (the little brother) was nice enough to go down to Chicago with me to pick up. And if I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it again, I hate Chicago. Everything about it. Especially Rush, for obvious reasons, and the traffic.
I met up with the person I got him from, drove to the other side of the parking lot (since if you’re going to buy anything online you make sure you’re in a well-lit, public place, and you never go alone) and I opened up the little critter keeper. He was cold. Like, really cold, and considering my car was reading at 21f the whole way, I was a little ticked off. It was just him, a couple inches of aspen, a silly little hamster hide, and some fake foliage from the dollar store. (Not including the two small pinky mice buried in the cage with him.)
So, we took him out, right there in the car, and held him for a couple minutes in front of the heat to warm him up. Once little Hades was toasty and feeling better, he went back into the travel cage, and into BJ’s lap. The whole way, he’d lift the cage up every time there was a pothole so he didn’t disrupt the sweet baby noodle.
When we got home, he was snugged up in a corner of the travel cage trying to keep warm. I thought this was absolutely adorable so before we got out of the car, I had to take at least one photo of this. Pip kept him nice and toasty, and safe the whole ride home.
(Definitely earned the Burger King that I got for him on the ride down to the city.)
He’s been handled a couple of times so far- even though you’re not technically supposed to handle new reptiles for a week or so to “quarantine” them. However, I’ve been keeping snakes, reptiles, and exotics for over 10-years at this point, and there are some exceptions that you just have to make. Exceptions like, warming him up in the car, transferring him from travel cage to his new home. I also wound up making a bit of an exception today, when going to change out his water because the cute little noodle slid over, and up my arm. (Really, he made the exception, not me.)
What I know about his personality so far is this; Hades is very curious. From the time he warmed up, he’s done almost nothing but roam around his new home. Though, that may also have something to do with the fact that he is in shed. He seems to love his logs and digging around and burrowing in his aspen. (Once my amazon package arrives, he’ll be moving on to coco bedding, simply because I find it to be more manageable, easier to clean, and other personal reasons.)
I honestly cannot wait to get to know more about him and his personality. It’s been quite some time since I had a corn snake, much less such a young corn snake, and I’m honestly more than a little excited to get to “grow up” with him. He’s sweet, curious, and very docile. As we speak, he’s hanging from one of his branches in his house, just watching me as I type this- and I am struggling not to get him out because, let’s face it, cute little faces are my weakness.
If anyone is wondering, the rats, Pibblet the Gremlin sugar glider, and the dog are all doing fine. No one seems bothered by Hades at all, and he will not be interacting with any of them for everyone’s safety. As for Angel, she cannot wait to meet him, and there’s a possibility (hopefully a large one) that she will be here within the next month to spend my birthday with me.
Until next time,
-Sky
Skyla N. Lambert
Author | Blogger | Snake Lover
E. skylanarissalambert@gmail.com
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