Care for a gravid dekayi

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

I've been avoiding too much contract for fear of stressing her out, and I've been feeding her as many earth worms as she will take. However I'm a novice at this and could use prenatal advice.

I don't know how far along she is and I'm concerned that handling her for inspection might be bad for the babies...

Also when it comes to baby care I'm probably going to split them up into individual Tupperware containers for feeding but it would be helpful to know to what extent their care differs from those of Thamnophi, having read the care sheet occasional misting and warming pads sound like viable options. I want to make sure they are strong enough before I decide to release some of them. I'll probably keep the best looking snakes in the hope of breeding them later. My hope is to halt the noticeable decline in their local populations. I may also consider selling a few of them or at least that was what a few people have suggested.

[guidofatherof5]

Keep in mind that they would be ready for the wild the moment they were born. I know what you mean. You would like them to be bigger and stronger before you release them. I know that feeling.
Dehydration is a big concern for babies so access to water(shallow dish) is imperative.
Smaller pieces of food and being fed more often would be about the only care differences. You must also watch for retained sheds as babies can be more prone to have it occur(in my opinion)
Your attempt to re-populate an area might be in vein, without knowing the cause for the decline. If the problem is a food supply issue then introducing more snakes into the ecosystem might just make things worse.
Just some food for thought.

[ConcinusMan]

Your attempt to re-populate an area might be in vein, without knowing the cause for the decline.

Indeed it would be. If the area once supported more snakes, and now it doesn't, then there's a reason for it. Adding more snakes won't help. If the area could support them, they would already be there.

Any time a predator such as a garter snake gets overpopulated, nature always kills off the excess. She doesn't put up with an imbalance for long. The current human population comes to mind. A whole lot of people need to die to set it right again. Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It most definitely will happen. It's inevitable. My point is, you say there used to be a lot more snakes there but it could be at that time, there was an overpopulation of them. More snakes than the area could support. Adding more would only lower the resources available to each individual. Better to have a small population of healthy animals with plenty to eat, than to have a large population that doesn't have enough. If and when the ecosystem can support more snakes, the population will go up naturally without your help.

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

I'm fairly certain predation is the cause, as there are plenty of earth worms and slugs, as well as mice and rats. Finding food for her has been quite easy. The other issue may be loss of habitat. I've cleared away a lot of the brush on either side of my house. Which may be causing them to leave. Though I'm planning to build a compost pile for leaves and grass clippings on the side of my yard close to where I found her, so hopefully that will act as a safe refuge for them. Who knows, I might even start to attract garters and ribbon snakes. All in all releasing the lion-share of them is probably the best thing for their well being. I doubt I could take adequate care of so many and I'd rather not leave too much of an ecological impact by keeping all these babies that would have gone into the yard anyway had I not found their mother under that log. Then there is my mother who had to be heavily persuaded to let me have the one snake I have... she has a fear of snakes that goes back to seeing two huge ones in Italy when she was very young.

[infernalis]

I'm fairly certain predation is the cause, as there are plenty of earth worms and slugs, as well as mice and rats. Finding food for her has been quite easy. The other issue may be loss of habitat. .

Predation - Sorry if this sounds cold, but the next in line up the food chain deserve to eat too. I love snakes, I love Dekayi, but I won't go shooting owls over it. (Example only)

So my point is, no matter when they are released, they could be eaten ten seconds after you walk away, it's nature.

Loss of habitat - Introducing new animals to an already overtaxed area of remaining habitat will screw with the natural order of things.

I too once had a (imprudent) vision of populating the woods.... But the reality is, habitat expansion is the only viable solution.

[Didymus20X6]

I've cleared away a lot of the brush on either side of my house. Which may be causing them to leave.

That's the very first piece of advice given to people trying to get rid of snakes. Believe me, I know: I wasn't always as enthusiastic about finding garters in my yard as I am these days.

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

Unfortunately my desire to have a well tended yard supersedes my desire to have a yard full of snakes. But given time I should be able to incorporate habitats suitable for them.

When I get the new fence, and tool shed built I plan to build in a walk way, some-kind of water feature, and as I already mentioned an enclosure to store yard waste. Which should provide the ideal brumation spot, as well as fill up the side of my hill or at least that's my hope. It slopes off toward the property line and its difficult to maintain for that reason. I figure a cinder block wall on the edge should allow me to fill it in overtime. When possible I like to solve multiple problems with singular actions.

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

I have no intention of scaring off blue jays... I do intend to discourage feral cats as they piss on my plants and wreck my garden. My intention is to incorporate snake friendly elements to my overall plan for the back yard. In the long term I'm going to fill in the slope on the side of my hill with yard waste, (grass clippings, small branches, and leaves) which should be perfect for them, and I want a water feature, possibly a series of terraced falls leading into a small artificial fish pond parallel to a walkway. Which I'll put in the shade of the trees since I can't get grass to grow there with any reliability anyway.

I'll probably stock it with small fish that can survive under ice, dragon fly larva, (to keep mosquitoes at bay) and perhaps some native species of tadpole. Possible snake food, and good for pest control. These are all things that existed where I live at one time, but seem to have been driven off by overall development. Which causes its own problems. Namely unnecessarily large numbers of insects, and other pests which do quite nicely with fewer predators.

I wouldn't say my scheme is very ambitious, I'm only trying to restore what I seem to have inadvertently damaged. And since I had to destroy my current snakes previous home, (a tree my neighbor cut down that landed square on my poor holly Bush) The number of places for snakes to hide continues to decrease. But they still have wood piles on the far side of my house, and grass clipping piles along the sides of my back yard. And since my Tiamat is pregnant, there has to be a male somewhere... I'll be keeping an eye out for him.

[katach]

Your landscaping idea sounds beautiful. I would love to see some pictures when you've finished. If I were a snake I would want to live there.

[Starling96]

Did she ever pop?