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Pituophis Snakes
The Pituophis are a group of medium to large sized snakes that come from North and Central America . They include the bull snake (Pituophis melanoleucus sayi), the gopher snake (Pituophis melanoleucus affinis) and the pine snake (Pituophis melanoleucus melanoleucus).
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Size: They get to a size of 4-6ft in length but the bull snake can get up to 7-8ft making it the largest species of the family.
These do come up for sale in shops occasionally as adults, but usually as babies. They can be quite nervous when first bought and they may hiss and wiggle their tails but once settled in their new cage they become very hand-able snakes.
Because of their usually agitated attitude and greater size they are for people with experience with other species of the colubrids such as the corn snake (pantherophis guttata) or the north American rat snake (elaphe obsoleta) but they do tame down well with regular interaction.
Housing Your Snake: For a small hatchling snake a large faunarium with a substrate of kitchen towel and a small water bowl for drinking and a small hide will be sufficient for your snake until its big enough for a larger vivarium. Putting a hatchling in a full sized cage will stress it out which will make less likely to feed or regurgitate. Regurgitation is very bad for the snakes health particularly at a vulnerable stage in their life. As full grown adult sized snakes, a single snake or a pair can live comfortably in a 48''x24''x24'' cage with a substrate of either newspaper or aspen shavings and with a water bowl big enough for the snake to occasionally soak in. The decoration of the vivarium can be as elaborate or simple as you please but make sure everything is secure and free from sharp edges to prevent injury to your snake.
Heating: Heating for these snakes can be either by heat mat or ceramic heater which both must be thermostatically controlled to be able to achieve the desired temperature and the ceramic heaters must be guarded to prevent injuries to your snake. Desired temps are 80-85F with a drop to 75f at night.
Humidity: The humidity needs of these types of snakes is quite low so a daily misting is sufficient but another one in the evening may help them when they are due to shed their skin
Cleansing Decor: Any rocks or branches you get from outdoors need to be sterilised to kill any germs or bugs that will infect your cage and in some cases put your animals' health at risk. The best way I've found is to put your small cage items in a bucket with the correctly diluted amount of Milton Fluid (or other sterilising fluid) and water. This can be found at chemists or supermarkets. Its main use is for sterilising babies' bottles. Leaving it for a few hours to soak and then rinse thoroughly. Once dry it is then safe to be used in your vivarium. With bigger items use the bath for soaking but remember to keep the same ratio of Milton to water or it will not be effective
Food And Feeding: They are easily fed on defrosted mice and rats, and are greedy feeders so are generally not a problem. Feeding from frozen is cheap to buy and they are available in many sizes. Feeding of live prey is not recommended as you put your snake in danger of an attack from an angry rodent and there is no unnecessary suffering to the rodent.
Defrosting before feeding can be done in many ways, for example; defrosting them in a warm place naturally, or submerging them in warm water until defrosted then dried. This also has an advantage of raising the body temperature of the prey and so fooling the snake into thinking the prey is live.
Most snakes will take the food item if you wiggle it with a pair of forceps (you can risk being bitten if using your fingers-not recommended) until the snake grabs it which is called 'strike feeding' whereas others prefer to feed off the ground of in the privacy of their hide box.
In some cases you get the odd reluctant feeder which will not take the mice or rats easily so here are a few pointers:
- braining the rodent which involves splitting the rodents' skull and exposing the brain and the snake upon smelling this should take it with no problems
- splitting the stomach which involves splitting the abdomen and has the same effect as skull splitting
- washing the rodent and handling it as little as possible could be another way to get it feeding as it might smell your scent, which could be off putting to the snake.
- scenting it with chick or mouse in the case of rats could trigger a feeding response or rubbing lizard skin on there as snakes are opportunist feeders in the wild so worth a try to the captives.
Once these methods have been exhausted pre killed is another option with the above methods used.
Assist feeding should only be attempted as a last resort as it can cause added stress to the snake. Force feeding is a very last option and should only be carried out by someone experienced.
All the above methods have proved successful so you should have no problems.
Handling Your Snake: When first acquiring a young snake try and resist the temptation of handling the snake until it is feeding regular and it has fully settled into its new environment. Some snakes can be a little nervous when you handle them for the first time and shake their tail and strike but take things slowly and they calm down to accept handling very well. However, there is always the odd exception, which can be aggressive and not take to handling as well as you'd hoped.
It is best not to handle snakes 48 hours after a feed too as to not risk regurgitation. You must feel confident in handling the snake as you can risk injuring the snake, even a fall from a small height can injure a snake.
The best way to handle a snake of this size is to support the snakes body at two places and gently let it glide between your hands freely, don't hold them too tightly as you can cause it injuries such as bruising. Hold it as you would feel comfortable.
Sexing Your Snake: Some breeders and experienced keepers can tell the snakes sex by tail length or popping the tails when they are a few days old or more, but this should only be carried out by experienced keepers or reptile vets, because in the wrong hands or if done after that period you risk harming your snake and damaging the hemipenes in male snakes. The almost exact way to define the sex of your snake is probing. This also should only be carried out by experienced keepers or reptile vets, as again can cause serious injury or damage which ultimately could kill your snake. It involves a blunt steel rod being inserted into the cloacae (or vent) of your snake and depending how many sub caudal scales it goes up will determine the sex of your snake. 3 or 4 scales is female. 8 to 10 scales is male.
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This reptile caresheet is courtesy of Lee Harris from DNS Forums |
Please only take the information given in any of our caresheets as general advice. They may not provide an exact answer to your particular reptiles problem and are to act as a general guide and 'heads-up' to keeping reptiles.
We cannot be held responsible for any problems your reptile encounters following the reading of these pages.
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