We lost another snake last week, which was unexpected: Jennifer found the male hognose snake dead in his cage. He’d been an inconsistent eater, and had been moved into a separate cage to see if that would help his appetite; he had, however, been eating again. Not sure what got him — clearly the inappetance was a symptom of something — but we discovered it too late to do a necroscopy.

On a happier note, almost every snake (and turtle) that was going to be moved into a new cage is now in their new digs; they all seem to be enjoying the additional room. It took some doing to get enough locks, but, as promised, the boa constrictor, bullsnakes and black pine snakes are now in their new enormous cages. The box turtle is now in the pine snakes’ old cage; the gray rat snake is in the female bullsnake’s cage; and the ball python is in the boa constrictor’s old cage. The male bullsnake’s old cage is now being shared by the male Okeetee corn snake and the Great Plains rat snake; meanwhile, the female blue-striped garter snake has moved in with the female red-sided garter snake. They’re getting along so far. Pretzel, my original female corn snake, is now on her own, away from Trouser’s wayward hemipenes, and the remaining garter snakes previously inhabiting five-gallon tanks are now in larger digs. And the female Cape gopher is now in the gray rat’s old cage. (I think that’s it.)

Moonlight, my male California kingsnake, is even more psycho lately: at his last feeding time, he refused his meal, preferring instead to strike at us through the glass. In the more than eight years I’ve had him, he’s never been this belligerent. (Nibbly, yes, but not angry.) Gonna have to keep an eye on him, in case this is symptomatic of something.