Other pets (pics and discussions)

[RedSidedSPR]

north american green snakes and asian vine snakes seem to have many things in common... they often spontaneously drop dead even after they are seemingly doing well, they have a specialized diet, and they are honestly rarely, if EVER available as CBB or CB (sometimes i do see north american green snakes but I only know of ONE person who's had litters of vine snakes and those were from WC gravid moms, he was largely unsucessful at rearing the babies) meaning you are buying WC animals and in the case of the vines snakes have been put through a taxing importation process that leaves them stressed and weakened. Vine snakes eat lizards though, plain and simple, so unless you are looking to feed a snake lizards all of the time, it's pretty much not an option. The one person i know who is successfully keeping vine snakes, the same guy who had some babies born, has them in a VERY large viv that is made up like a miniature rainforest and is constantly supplying them with anoles to eat. They need a VERY He even recently had a pair mating!! Which is a HUGE step forward... And of course, smooth and rough greens are insectivores.... but are definitely much easier to convince to eat than vine snakes are and they don't have the extremely special humidity and temperature requirements that the vine snake does because they are from a temperate region!

IDK where you are getting the idea that they have some crazy short life span.... unless you simply mean that people tend to kill them quickly, usually much quicker than 3 years! But I think you will find it takes a snake LONGER than 3 years to reach full maturity... so this claim is entirely not true. Their life span would EASILY reach double, triple, quadruple that if people could figure out how to stop failing at keeping them!

Also... I'm going to move this thread into other pets as soon as i am off my phone.

Well, I'm going by wild and captive average life span. If a snake lives 3 years average in the wild in it's natural environment......



But yes, they are very hard to keep, as i said.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

I can guarantee you they are living a bit longer than that! Aside from the ones that end up as someone else's dinner! 3 years is hardly enough time to grow up, let alone pass your genes on to a future generation. Ultimately, if you had to choose between the two, a this point in our hobby it's choosing the lesser of two evils... I say that because even the most seasoned herpers have been largely unsuccessful at keeping either species so far, but more-so the vine snake. Their care requirements are so different though that I'd say they are not even comparable.... If you are looking for the easier of the two to attempt, it would undoubtedly have to be the rough green snake, because it's setup would actually be quite similar to a garter snake's and it's diet is a *tad* easier to work with. it also hasn't been put through the extremely rough importation process, but then again a lot of times when you see rough greens for sale it's through those same wholesalers that peddle tons of cheap snakes and offer them little to no proper care. The asian vine snake is a highly, highly specialized snake and has very specific requirements especially pertaining to humidity... it is much less forgiving of even minor husbandry mistakes.... it's possibly one of the most intimidating species you could ever choose to work with! I think the major factor in getting off on the right foot with these animals is first to find healthy specimens from a TRUSTWORTHY supplier... or in the case of the green snakes, collect them yourself. DTS herps often has CB baby green snakes available every year (captive born, NOT captive bred, meaning the mom simply laid eggs after being caught) but I would not touch anything from them with a 10 foot pole. There is a reason they have acquired the nickname "Death to Snakes" amongst seasoned keepers. Hopefully years down the road, someone will have mastered the art of keeping either of these species and captive bred will be available. I would gladly pay extra hundreds of dollars for a US CBB pair of vine snakes.

[EasternGirl]

I had a black racer in my yard a few years ago that was going after my lab retriever...it was a mean one and it wasn't backing down. I went out to try to get it away from my dog and it came after me...I just got my dog and got the heck out of there. Of course if my chihuahua had been around then...he certainly wouldn't have backed down. This is why we named him Elvis Presley...because he thinks he is the king. (see how I combined posts there? ).

[snakehill]

Shannon! Your Carpet is GORGEOUS!!! Makes me want another one!!!

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Shannon! Your Carpet is GORGEOUS!!! Makes me want another one!!!

careful!!! They are like garters and potato chips. You can't just have one!!! I love my carpets. They're always so curious about what I'm doing and I love the way they hang out in plain sight all day!

[snakehill]

Hey Shannon I hate to be a pest about corns but I would like your opinion on keeping them together! We all know that it is a hot topic on other forums! I kept 2 adult corns in a 40 gallon back when I had my reptile room and never had a problem! I did feed them seperately though! What do you think? Opinions from others also welcome! Thanks

[RedSidedSPR]

Yeah i have racers in my yard each spring. They are mean! They were the first snake i caught. couldn't keep it from biting me at the time, Tore me up!

I can guarantee you they are living a bit longer than that! Aside from the ones that end up as someone else's dinner! 3 years is hardly enough time to grow up, let alone pass your genes on to a future generation. Ultimately, if you had to choose between the two, a this point in our hobby it's choosing the lesser of two evils... I say that because even the most seasoned herpers have been largely unsuccessful at keeping either species so far, but more-so the vine snake. Their care requirements are so different though that I'd say they are not even comparable.... If you are looking for the easier of the two to attempt, it would undoubtedly have to be the rough green snake, because it's setup would actually be quite similar to a garter snake's and it's diet is a *tad* easier to work with. it also hasn't been put through the extremely rough importation process, but then again a lot of times when you see rough greens for sale it's through those same wholesalers that peddle tons of cheap snakes and offer them little to no proper care. The asian vine snake is a highly, highly specialized snake and has very specific requirements especially pertaining to humidity... it is much less forgiving of even minor husbandry mistakes.... it's possibly one of the most intimidating species you could ever choose to work with! I think the major factor in getting off on the right foot with these animals is first to find healthy specimens from a TRUSTWORTHY supplier... or in the case of the green snakes, collect them yourself. DTS herps often has CB baby green snakes available every year (captive born, NOT captive bred, meaning the mom simply laid eggs after being caught) but I would not touch anything from them with a 10 foot pole. There is a reason they have acquired the nickname "Death to Snakes" amongst seasoned keepers. Hopefully years down the road, someone will have mastered the art of keeping either of these species and captive bred will be available. I would gladly pay extra hundreds of dollars for a US CBB pair of vine snakes.

That's good to know that they live longer then that.

And yeah, I've seen green snakes, racers, all the stuff I can never find at DTS but don't wanna buy it cuz I don't want to support them.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Hey Shannon I hate to be a pest about corns but I would like your opinion on keeping them together! We all know that it is a hot topic on other forums! I kept 2 adult corns in a 40 gallon back when I had my reptile room and never had a problem! I did feed them seperately though! What do you think? Opinions from others also welcome! Thanks

personally when it comes to practically ALL snakes I am a one snake, one cage person. The ONLY snakes I cohab are those that genuinely seem to "enjoy" it (I am using that term loosely, for lack of a better one) and the only snakes I find that seem to do BETTER in small groups are garter snakes and similar natricine snakes. Especially little babies, if you take a shy one and put it with a group of bold, good eaters it often turns the shy baby around and give him some confidence. Even adult garters seem to "enjoy" the company of one another, maybe it is a safety in numbers mentality, who knows... but out in the field I almost always find piles of basking garter and water snakes and it's actually easier to spot multiple garter snakes together or in very close proximity to one another than it is to find them alone. I also find that my adult garters in captivity seem to benefit from the extra mental stimuli that comes from being in a small group... and have even had garter snakes kept alone stop thriving and go off feed when nothing else was changed.... but that's not to say garters cannot or should not be kept alone as the majority of them will thrive, but if being kept alone they should at LEAST be given plenty of mental and visual stimuli... and not just stuck in a plain dark box with a bowl of water and some bedding. Being kept like that seems to "zombify" them... they become inactive and much less engaged.... not to mention FAT!!! The same cannot be said about pretty much any other snake... they are solitary by nature, especially corns, being crepuscular (active during sunrise and twilight) and fossorial (spends a lot of time under the leaf litter and other debris).... and then there is the issue of two adult males will stress one another out, an adult pair will end up breeding whether you want them to or not and the male can over breed the female or breed her far too young, stunting her growth and even risking her life. Just out of habit I would not even keep females together, merely for the fact that they are indeed, very solitary snakes and definitely seem to get NOTHING out of being kept together. Most of them will still eat because, well, corns love to eat and aren't shy about it... but I have seen cohabbed corns go off feed due to stress of having another snake all up in their business. They don't like it and if you notice when you introduce two cornsnakes to one another they are leary about each other and a lot of twitching and tail wagging goes on. Same goes with ball pythons, any other kind of python, rat snake.... etc etc. Generally, I don't agree with the principle that just because they seem "fine" that it makes it OK... too many people use the fact that they are "fine" to try and justify keeping them together and skimping on supplies... not saying at all this is the case but if one doesn't have the space and $$$ to buy another cage the last thing they should worry about is adding another snake to the already existing cage! There is also the whole quarantine thing.... you can't possibly quarantine a new snake from your current one if you don't have separate cages.... and if one snake gets sick or regurges or has worms in it's poop.... not only do you not know which snake it's from but it's probably already too late for the other! Hope this helps

[EasternGirl]

I send the racers into my neighbors yard...because she's mean too...lol!

[snakehill]

Thanks Shannon! I guess I won't keep 2 together although they would be from the same place and have already been together.There are so many beautiful corn morphs out there! It's hard not to keep getting more!