LOL

2015

Acquired

2015

LOL gets her name from the emoji-like headstamp that she has.

I worry that I have broken LOL. When feeding snakes over the years it's common for one or two animals to not want to eat on a given night. So I have taken the uneaten mouse or rat and offered it to another snake so that it doesn't go to waste. Too frequently I have offered the uneaten rodent to LOL. And I didn't realize it but she has gotten pretty fat from it. Since discovering it I have only fed her one smallish meal once per month to try and thin her down a bit.

2019, Twig, blood-red corn snake

There used to be a beautiful blood-red corn snake named Twig living in the cage above LOL. One day I found Twig's sliding glass doors open a little and Twig was missing. We couldn't find her anywhere in the room. Strangely, LOL's cage below Twig's also had the sliding doors slightly open, not enough for LOL to escape but big enough for Twig to fit through. The glass doors were closed the night before so the only thing I can guess is that Twig got her doors open just enough to escape, and then sadly she went down and either she or LOL got LOL's door open just enough for Twig to seek safety inside and of course, LOL being a king snake took advantage of the opportunity and ate Twig. All of the cages got locks on them soon after and LOL has carried the shame from her humans in the years since. In our house no body is necessary for a murder conviction.

I have been excited to attempt breeding LOL with Blister but Blister is a little bit smaller than LOL so I have been worried she would eat him. He is about 2/3 the length of her but due to me over-feeding her, Blister is only about 1/2 her thickness. In the first breeding attempt that I made between them I put him in her cage and then sat and watched. It was nighttime and she came crawling out from the substrate excitedly smelling the air. Sure enough, within 5 minutes she had found Blister and bitten him near the tail and was hanging on when I opened the cage and pulled him out. I almost wrote off the year and figured I'd let him grow for another year before trying again but a couple days later I decided to try during the daytime. This time it looked good. LOL came out and as Blister circled her cage she circled too and eventually they settled down under different hides so I think we're good to go.