silverthorne

Who Needs Stephan King or H.P. Lovecraft when you live in Texas?

So, here it is, 2 am, and I'm trying to crawl into bed to get two-and-a-half hours of sleep before it's time to get up for work. I have two Black Desert King Snakes; each of them have their own tanks that sit next to each other, as well as between my futon matress and the wall. Before I go to bed, I tend to talk to them a little, and they check me out through the glass. It's a nice no frills, but companionable bedtime routine.

I think you can imagine my horror when I saw ants making a nice little ant-line up the side and into one of the snake tanks.

I of course hoped it was only a few scouts..checking the place out. I covered the screen top and carefully sprayed the outside edges of the tank, the botton, the stand itself with ant spray. I hoped that that was the end of it. I rechecked anyway.

It wasn't...the closer I looked, the more apparent it became that they had already found the inside of the tank...and something tasty in there to boot. Many of them were carrying something in their little carpenter ant jaws--possibly some of the supposedly treated tree branch or the half log that Shadrack likes to hide under...

Or else I had missed some of his offal last time I cleaned the tank and they'd found it.

Either way, the ants were in there...with my snake...that could not escape if the ants decided he would make a tasty addition to their meal.

That had already happened once to a mouse I had about two years back. It wasn't pretty...I found them before they'd killed the mouse, but not before they'd bitten him so much that he was a goner anyway...and I don't even want to think about that too much...just remembering the damn things crawling in and out of his ear while he twitched his last...*shudders*

Anyway, so yeah, I freaked out.

Out came the snake...wrapped nicely around my left wrist and arm. (Fortunately, Shadrack, although not as friendly as my other boy Ian, knows to hang on and move around much when Mom has him with only one hand.). He got the inspection of his little snakey life. it was probably not the most enjoyable experience he's had, but at least I knew for sure the ants hadn't started in on him...yet.

It was the tank's turn next.

Not having much recourse at 2 am...I went and got the 7-Dust we use in the rodent tanks as the botton layer, and on the cats during really bad flea season.

I sprinkled liberally all over that tank, including the log and the branch. Waited until I could not find a living ant...and put Shadrack back in. And then watched him for another 30 minutes to make sure he wasn't about to keel over from contact with the 7-dust. It doesn't bother the mice, and they *roll* in it, but I was still worried about it.

I'm just hoping that since stuff does not stick easily, if at all, to snake hide, and since we don't feed the boys in their tank (thereby preventing him from ingesting the now sprinkled dirt), that I haven't inadvertently caused the potential death of my snake...

He seemed fine though when I left this morning--still extremely perky, and no sign of those goddamn ants. When I get home, I'll clean out both tanks completely, spray the whole corner where the tanks are, lay traps, respray the outside of the tanks...and, if I can find someplace that says it really *is* safe, lay down a nice layer of 7-Dust in the tanks again...

At this point though, if I've already screwed up, I look at it this way--better a relatively fast death by nuerotoxin poisoning than slow painful death by hundreds of ant bites and then getting eaten while still alive...

Gods, I hate this place. Only in Texas....