Having tricked the infamous, food-fussy rosy boa snake into thinking that it is summer time in her cage, youngest son set about on a mission of mercy to track down the tiniest of baby feeder mice to make a long-overdue meal for his slithery charge.
Regular readers will recall the issues we've been having in the frozen food department. Not one living creature here on Rivetti Mountain can be seemingly coaxed into consuming convenience foods, making for frequent expeditions to various pet stores around town in search of the real deal. Like I don't have anything much else to do, right?
The otherwise affable little boa was purchased from the mind-bogglingly brilliant reptile breeders at the East Bay Vivarium - the largest reptile specialist store in the nation. Youngest son considers this store on Berkeley's colorful, tree-lined Fifth Street a sort of mecca for like minded lovers of all things scaly.
A Saturday with the Bay Area bonus of glorious, seventy degree sunshine put me in a fair-weather mood for making the trek over to the East Bay to treat my reptile keeper to a trip to the Vivarium and I can happily report in today's post that the rosy boa has finally fed again after weeks of worry.
Snapped this shot of the most gorgeous violet-tummied hummingbird in a rock garden opposite the vivarium, as squirrels pranced along telephone wires under beautiful blue skies. Truly hard to believe it wasn't a picture of Spring, as other parts of the country are buried under fresh feet of snow and ice.
Truly a value day!
Or so it appeared. OK: Footnote necessary here, some four hours after over-zealous posting. Seems the snake was not so keen on the gourmet dinner hand delivered from the East Bay, after all. For her meal was mysteriously back intact (though departed) on the floor of the cage this afternoon.
Ten year old keeper spent more time on the telephone with his learned friends at the Vivarium, and most of this afternoon subsequently attempting to vary heat degrees at different ends of the cage. The boa was given a room temperature tupperware bath for twenty minutes and is not to be fed for another two weeks. The saga continues. I am either going to have a vet or a zookeeper for a son. He's totally into it. And me? Well, I'm keeping my cool.
poor little mouse...havent you any of those sticky traps that I will never forget. only told a bird breeder the other day who was selling them of my first day experience babysitting in usa
Posted by: frans mum | Monday, January 12, 2026 at 12:21 PM