Today's post is about Pluto, who is a pastel ball/royal python. I was gifted him from a breeder I was purchasing two adult royals from to be key breeders for myself. His history: I received him at approx 8 months of age, however he was (and still is) absolutely tiny for his age. The breeder had previously sold him to a family as a pet for their young son, however they ended up bringing him back to the breeder as he just wasn't being cared for properly, as is evident from his size, as well as two burns he had sustained along his back. The breeder had no use for this young male, as was actually downsizing his royal collection himself to make room for breeding projects of other species, including some Kenyan Sand Boas I was particularly excited to see, as they are a snake breed I love and hope to own one day. We got talking about our collections and I mentioned how I had taken in multiple "rescue/rehome" animals, and he asked if I would be interested in this little guy as a freebie, and he was adorable and I just couldn't turn him away. I had actually only gone there to collect my vanilla scream male, seen a powerhouse multi gene female he also had and just had to have her as well, and thats how I ended up coming home with 3 snakes instead of 1. (And then went on to take in another 2 2 days later - Sunni and Floyd).
Pluto is still very small for his age, largely due to him being improperly cared for in his formative months. He is also a very timid animal, and often scares himself with his food and ends up missing feeds, which doesn't help, but he is slowly but surely gaining, so although he is tiny for a 1 year old, I'm not worried about his progress. His burn scars have also healed just fine, he has a couple of funky shaped scales now from the scarring but they don't both him and aren't large enough to restrict his movement at all. Burns can occur from a variety of causes, usually from an enclosure not being set up correctly. If the burns had been along his stomach this could indicate he had been kept on a heat-mat without a properly functioning stat, (equipment which regulates the temperature of the mat) or even without a stat at all, which is incredibly dangerous, not only for the snakes health but can even cause fires.
His namesake is because of his small size, all my pythons' names are related to the solar system and constellations, but also because he was once bought as a pet but then given back, kind mirroring how Pluto was named a planet but then the title was taken away. Just above you can see the larger of his two burn scars, shortly after I took him on, mostly healed.
He may be a fussy eater and super great at escaping his enclosures - quite a few times I've had to turn my room out looking for him, and he actually went missing for around 6 weeks in August-September until I found him in a bag of topsoil when putting together a new vivarium, but hes still adorable and truly my snake that best exemplifies why royal pythons are commonly called ball pythons.
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