0:00:00.0 Speaker 1: Alright. So starting this video off with this. This is a Calabar Burrowing Python. This is his little face, this is his little eye right there.
0:00:13.7 Speaker 2: They’re weird looking themselves.
0:00:16.1 Speaker 1: This animal which was brought to me as a rescue, literally just dropped off right now. This is the very tiny enclosure that he’s been living in. And you can see how shallow the substrate is. This should be a lot deeper. I’ve never owned one of these kinds of snakes, so I have been doing a bit of my research since we’ve been emailing, but as you can see, he is giant for this tiny enclosure, which isn’t even an enclosure. I’m not even sure how we would do a basking area and an ambient temperature area in here. As far as I know, these little guys like to climb a bit as well, so we’ll get him all set up with a new enclosure, and let’s go ahead and get started. And then once I do that, I’m gonna be leaving him alone for a while, but poor little guy, this enclosure is just so small, and then that water dish is also not big enough for this little guy. So imagine that being in there and then this little guy has had basically no space to do anything. So we need to name him. He’s very cute.
0:01:20.5 Speaker 2: Take a picture. It would last longer.
0:01:22.1 S1: I almost wanna keep his name as Calabar because if you had seen Halloween Town, that guy’s name is Calabar, and I freaking love that movie. Hi little baby. Hi. Sorry for the noise. Nick is actually up there carving out a waterfall or making… I also wanted to notate, I don’t have an extra hand to really show you. Maybe I can do this. I just wanna notate about how dry this is. And from what I’ve been reading, they should have no standing water, but this should be heavily misted at least once a day and it should remain somewhat moist. So this little guy has had no substrate to burrow in and he’s burrowing… So we are gonna get a building. We are going to go ahead and I’ve done some rearranging on my reptile wall, so we’re gonna go ahead and put… I also picked a name. Drum roll please.
0:02:11.6 S1: Okay, so it’s funny, the very first comment was the name Kevin on the picture, the very first one. And I asked Nick I said, “What should we name this little guy? I’m probably gonna rehome him, I usually don’t keep my rescues. If I need to, I do, but he needs a name anyway. So I asked Nick, I said, “What should we name this little guy?” And he goes, “Kevin.” And I was like, “Ha ha, funny, funny.” And he’s like, “What?” And I’m like, “That was literally the first comment,
suggestion, name suggestion on the picture, it was Kevin.” And I was like, “Okay, Kevin it is.” So I really like Cinnamon too. You guys had some really cute names in there. So his name is Kevin, and Kevin is going to go ahead and go in this enclosure right here.
0:02:56.5 S1: I had one hell of a time finding almost any information on a Calabar Burrowing Python. So I found one PDF article of some information, and that’s what I’m going off of because there is virtually no information online about them. I can’t even find a book on the species. So if you have kept these or know information to be true, please leave in the comments ’cause I would love to hear. As far as I know, we need to make the substrate much deeper than it is, they are a burrowing snake, it makes them feel secure, they’ll spend the most of their life and time underneath the substrate or in a hide. They’re elusive, they’re shy. And from what I’ve read, most people don’t
handle them very much, but they are very friendly and just kind of coy. So, so far, that’s exactly how Kevin is. He’s super sweet. I hung out with him, he actually seemed to really enjoy being out, he was exploring and didn’t seem freaked out at all, he didn’t ball up, it was really interesting, he just was exploring and having a good time.
0:04:01.4 S1: I wanna show you the mixture of soil that I’m doing for him, I think I might need to make some more. What we have here is Coco fiber, and the darker stuff is organic soil, and then over here is Mason resand. Someone on Instagram who does very well with her reptile suggested that I do a mixture of organic soil and the Mason resand because it’s able to hold tunnels. So this is the mixture that I’m doing for Kevin. And this is already really moist, this isn’t… But what he’s currently in, is not moist at all, like it needs to be much moisture for this kind of snake. So I’m gonna mix this up and then… I might need to make some more, but we will… I’m breaking up all the big pieces, and then we’ll put this in there. It’s getting all under my brand new manicure, lovely. Things we do for our animals. Am I right or am I right?
0:05:08.9 S1: The soil looks just really cool. This is a cage from custom cages, and as you can see, there are vents right here and over here in the back. The whole top up here is a grate. So there’s plenty of ventilation. And so what I’m going to do is actually cover one of the… Cover both of these with these little guards that they make for the different cages so that we don’t have a bunch of soil and sand getting through there.
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0:05:42.0 S1: Maybe I’m gonna use kinetic energy because this is extremely warm right here because I just realized that right below this is my Tegus basking spot. So I’m actually gonna measure the temp here and see what we’ve got. Wow, it is 88 degrees right there. So that’s actually freaking perfect. The basking area for these guys should be about 85 to 90 degrees. For the sake of this video, and being able to see, I’m gonna go ahead and put this light on top. I’ve actually bought this on Amazon for $16, and it’s super bright, it’s actually for aquariums. I really like these lights for enclosures that don’t really need any UVB, like a Green Tree Python and my gecko, but I really want to light up the space, these are awesome.
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0:06:47.4 S1: Okay, so I got this basically as deep as I can do it. So now I’m gonna put a very large water dish in here and some decorations and a hide, a couple of different hides and some climbing stuff. Apparently, these guys like to occasionally climb, so I’m gonna add that in there just so that… I almost called him Mike, how rude. So Kevin has all of his options, we like options.
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0:07:16.6 S1: Put some of our leftover soil in here as a hide. The good part about these heavier hides too is that they really like weight on top of them on the soil, so this will help him feel a little bit more secure.
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0:07:38.5 S1: I’m gonna use a little bit of wire to attach this plant to the top. [music]
0:08:01.1 S1: So I also just put a light up here, a heat lamp, just so I can make sure the ambient temperature is correct. And here’s what we’ve got so far, I put some of the… Focus. I put some plants up there, there’s a hide, there’s a hide. He can actually hide behind this hide and there’s a bit of a hide with this here and then I’m gonna fill this with my ReptiSafe water. And here’s about how deep we have it, it’s probably about four or five inches. So yeah, I also filled this guy up with leftover soil that I had that just couldn’t fit, ’cause it would over… It would kind of come over this. So let’s go ahead and fill up the water and then we’ll get him in here.
0:08:52.2 S1: I also printed this and put it here. I really like to just have all of these on all my enclosures so that everyone knows the animal’s name, which I hadn’t named him yet. So put it here, put a picture and then kind of some quick facts, because I can’t remember all of this, honestly. I have a lot of animals and try as I may, I could never remember all of the specs on all of these. So it’s just really good to just have this right here so that you know exactly what you’re looking for when you’re checking on things and you don’t have to go search for it. I also have a really giant folder that goes more indepth on to every single one of my animals and it’s right over… It’s right behind me on the floor.
0:09:33.9 S1: One thing that I am missing for this enclosure right now is a hygrometer. I need to know what the humidity is in here at all times, as well as the temperature. I do have a temp gun, so I’ll be using that for now, but I’m gonna be going to the store today, because I’m preparing my baby chameleon’s enclosures tomorrow, I think. So I need to have those anyway, but super weird, because I literally just bought some before I went to California and now there’s none. So I’m not really sure what happened to them, but I need to buy a giant pack. So we’re good to go. I’m gonna grab Kevin. Kevin is in here, and I’ve got his thermostat set on 90 right now, so I may end up using this. I’m gonna monitor the temperature in there, but if I could use the energy from the hotspot in the cage below for his hotspot in his cage, that would be absolutely awesome. But let’s go ahead and get him out of here. Kevin.
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0:10:36.1 S1: So as I was searching through Kevin’s cage, couldn’t find Kevin anywhere. That’s because Kevin was gone. Just found Kevin. He’s really living up to his name.
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0:10:56.6 S1: Hi, Kevin.
0:11:00.6 S2: How can she see me?
0:11:02.1 S1: Here’s Kevin. I literally have absolutely no idea how he got out of that cage, 04/12/21 Page 4 of 7
Calabar Burrowing Python Rescue & New Cage Build!
because… I’m just super surprised, but really glad that I found him. I don’t have many pets that get loose, but when they do, I freak out and I don’t stop looking until I find them, that’s never fun. Anyways, now that we have a temperaturecontrolled area, he’s a little stressed out right now after all the days work. You can tell these guys, their defense mechanism is to kinda curl up like a ball. If you shop at HomeGoods, this probably looks familiar. You see a lot of these made out of glass that go on tables. But this is kind of their defense mechanism. They don’t really fight too much, but they will ball up like this. Now he really looks like a turd. Look at that. [chuckle] What you do is then we put the turd in the enclosure.
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0:12:22.6 S2: Leave me alone. I’m doing ball things.
0:12:25.0 S1: Hi, cutie.
0:12:25.9 S2: First I was a turd and now I’m a cutie. Stop lying.
0:12:29.3 S1: I know. I just tore you out of your little fun, cold, dark hiding spot, but this cage is so much cooler. Yeah, yeah.
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0:12:47.3 Speaker 3: I’m a martyr, you know what I mean?
0:12:51.3 S2: I wonder what’s over here. Let’s see how you did on this cage build, human. [music]
0:13:04.0 S1: I went to check on Kevin this morning and noticed that a lot of the soil had been mixed around a little bit and super cool, but proof that you really can create tunnels in this. There are tunnels everywhere, I don’t know if you can see, underneath the water bowl, there’s another tunnel right there. And then over here there’s a whole tunnel and it goes actually all the way back. I know it’s hard to see with the reflection, but this isn’t just a hole… Oops, this actually goes under the soil. So I’m sure Kevin is super freaking stoked in here. I absolutely love… Am loving so far, this mixture for burrowing. Super freaking awesome. So I guess it’s safe to say that Kevin is absolutely loving burrowing in his new… Hi pups. In his new enclosure with his new soil.
0:13:56.5 S1: So, hi. Hello. Did you need something? Did you need something? So yeah, I was pretty excited about how that turned out. I might even add more soil now it’s moved around a little bit. It looks like it’s not compacted, but has definitely gone down a little bit. And so, yeah, I’m very happy for Kevin. I’m so glad I found him. Oh, my gosh. My heart like dropped outta my butt when I couldn’t find him in there. I was like, “You have got to be kidding me.” Like…
0:14:30.3 S1: Thank you guys so much for watching. And again, if you have any information about this kind of snake and you know some stuff, please drop in the comments below. And if you find
any links that might be useful, I would love those too, greatly appreciated. I can really, basically find nothing on the internet, so… I might even call my vet and see if he’s got some information about this specific snake, because, like I’ve said a million times, I can’t find anything on the internet. So, thank you guys so much for watching and we will see you in the next video. I’ve got quite a few filmed right now/that I’m working on, so it won’t be a month again before I upload again, I promise. Bye guys.
