Introducing...

Monty!...

Monty is a CB11 (CB being Captive Bred, 11 referring to year of  hatch) and is, genetically speaking, of normal colouration (or "wild type"). As I found out after naming, Monty is actually a female, as determined by having her "probed" at a local petshop, and will hopefully be laying some nice fat eggs of her own next year!!

Monty was very much an impulse buy in 2011 after an unplanned visit to another local petshop, in an age old tradition where I treat myself to a (often ridiculous) Christmas present. After gawping at young Boas and Corn Snakes wide eyed like a small child, I got chatting to a member of staff, who convinced me that of their snakes, I wanted a Royal Python. And I'm glad he did! They sold certain snakes as a "Starter Package" which in hindsight, wasn't all that brilliant, as this did not contain everything needed, and included some things that weren't required at all, but £200 later I was the very happy owner of the most fascinating creature I've ever held! Prior to this day, I'd never even considered buying a snake, mainly as amongst a whole load of other misconceptions, I thought they would be expensive to buy, expensive to house, and expensive to feed, but after having a tiny Monty wrapped round my wrist, my decision was made - and at no point have I so much as even slightly regretted it!

"Bottoms up!"

I say that she is a 2011 hatch, but this is only actually a best guess based purely on her size when I bought her, which was 300 grams, so she was either very young, or quite underfed - it's hard to say really. Royal Pythons in general have a bit of a bad reputation in terms of being picky eaters, so not really suitable for inexperienced / first time owners - but I have never had an issue here, as this picture shows, Monty has always been a very keen eater, and her growth this year has been tremendous - from 400 grams in March this year, to just over a Kilo as per yesterdays weekly weigh-in - 600 grams in 3 months!

Speaking of which, I have a nice smelly rat freshly defrosted, and it's tea time for Monty. Ciao for now!