Dear Lachesis..........its ... " IT'S STORY TIME "

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: : : ITS BIRTHDAY TIME!! : : : : : : In honor of his longevity and overall placid demeanor, I post this OLD picture of my adult, proven(Over and over again!) : : : Breeder/Pet/Companion - Male EASTERN INDIGO "CADILLAC" : : : He has sired quite a few litters in the time I have had him, produceing hardy large babies.His mate "Lincoln" is 7 years old. After a LOT of computation concerning purchase dates and his past history, I tabulated his age to be at least 18 years at the present time. I have had him for 6 of that personally. And he was kept at a local pet shop in the early 1980's as AN ADULT. I do the majority of my snake presentations with him, because of his placid demaenor. I still breed him, but not every year, its been more like every 3 years. : : : He still is ravenous, eats anything that moves(Remind me to tell you the rattlesnake story:) : : : When you keep and animal this long, you start to notice things that you WOULDNT notice if you just had snakes comeing in and out of your collection(Allthough new stuff is FUN!) : : : Like how he eats rats and pins the EXTRA ones with hs body, holding 2 on the side of the cage, while one is going down his throat. Special little things like that.....lol : : : *Cheers* : : : Fred : : : (AZTEC REPTILES) : : OK BOYS AND GIRLS ITS: : STORYTIME!!!!!!! : THE RATTLESNAKE STORY : : Many, many years ago, when my large male Indigo "Cadillac" was but a wee lad of 11 years of age(Yes its true!) I was out herping and came across NOTHING. As usual when you get skunked, I went honme dejected, makeing up excuses as to why : I didnt find anything("It's to early in the year") : (""To many peole have been here allready") All pretty lame excuses, really. : The place where I went herping was directly behind the apt complex I lived in, so after being totally burned on getting and SEEING nothing, I walked dejectedly home down a long dirt path. : As I approached the asphalt parking lot adjacent to my apartment, an area where many unsupervised kids play because their parents are quite busy doing other important tasks, such as playing dungeons &dragons or drinking beer, or fighting(Apartment life SUCKS) I happened to see something moveing near one of the car tires. : I ran over too it, and lo and behold...it was a Rattlsnake!! I estimated it to be about 2 years of age or more, and a good 18 inches long. Stout, healthy and VERY aggressive,I realized i couldnt leave it in the parking lot, because of the mass of orphan*sic* kids out there, chances are they would see it and pick it up. Maybe they would bring it home to mom and dad, if they didnt get bit(That thought was almost funny,might even motivate the parents to actually DO something with the kids for once...go figure!!) : So I picked it up, with the idea in my mind or releasing it back into the canyon, way back, where no one could possibly get ahold of it and get hurt. But I was tired...dog tired...and wanted to go rest. So, I took the western diamondback home. Put the box on a counter and sat down, my friend and neighbor was at my door, so he came in and we sat down and drank a few...lemonades(I hate beer, sorry guys) : After a brief conversation, we fell into the the subject of what Indigos eat....finaly, he said"Indigos eat rattlers...dont they?" : Our eyes met....and we both grinned that stupid grin that both Men and little boys share. : Now..I NEVER, EVER feed my Easterns road kill or in fact any non domestic rodent or snake or lizard. But the temptaion was great. Too great. : So after discussing it, we decided to feed the rattler to "Cadillac'. Some kids in the building came by, told there friends what was going on, and pretty soon we had about 12 kids for this spectacle. : We introduced the rattler into the Indigos enclusure, its hissed, struck at him about 5 times, made contact about 4 times and then got *GRABBED* by the head and *SLAMMED* all over the cage, ratller buzzing wildly. The kids went nuts, so did I. Cadillac swallowed the rattler, the rattle was still buzzing as it went down cads throat. The lump was huge! : Well...thats the tale of rattlesnake feeding, I havent done so since, and wont do so in the future. : Transmission of parasites is but one reason. : Secondly, the poor rattler. : *cheers* : Fred

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