Cold Blooded Chronicles
News from kingsnake.com
In this issue:
Happy Holidays!
Short Tailed Python Care 101
Corn Snakes 101
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Happy Holidays!
We wish a wonderful holiday season and Happy New Year to the users of Pethobbyist.com! Thank you all for being part of our community.
The staff, volunteers, and patrons of the Pethobbyist.com family of web communities have made a donation of $500 to the Wildlife Warriors Fund, which was established in 2002 by Steve and Terri Irwin to support the protection of injured, threatened or endangered wildlife. This donation was made this holiday season in the memory of Steve, in hopes that it may be put towards the conservation of the animals and habitat that Steve helped us appreciate so much over the years.
Steve's memory will forever live on in the hearts and minds of those that he inspired. The world has lost a spokesman for the animals.
Happy Holidays!
Jeff Barringer
Clint Gilders
Christie Keith
And all of us at Pethobbhyist.com
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Short Tailed Python Care 101
By Rich Crowley
Chicago Herpetological Society
http://www.chicagoherp.org
The caging I find most successful for hatchlings are rack style setups. The hatchlings are housed in shoebox size tubs 6x14in until they are around 250-300g. At about this size they are too big for your typically shoebox style plastic container. At around the 250g mark, I upgrade them to the next size container referred to as a sweater box, a plastic container measuring 9x16in. The setup is the same either way just increase the bowl and hide accordingly. The heat tape in the rack is set at around 95-98F, which provides a slight thermal difference of 82F in the front and 85F in the back over the heat tape. The internal temperatures will vary based on the ambient temperatures and the amount of airflow around and under the container. I melt lots of holes in the sides of the box using a soldering iron to keep a good balance of humidity and fresh air. This slows the growth of mold, which will accumulate quickly in the damp substrate without good airflow. I use aspen chips
, but must replace them weekly or as soiled. I have also used newspaper with crumpled sheets to allow the snake to hide in and others have used Carefresh brand bedding with equal results.
For adults, there is a little more flexibility. I house adults individually (as with all non-breeding snakes) in either 36x28in or 48x28in cages with newspaper as a substrate. I use Vision brand cages, but Neodesha and others also work as long as the basics are met. I stay away from using substrates that hide feces and urine stains such as cypress and other wood chip substrates. As with the juvenile housing, I provide a proportionately sized hide box for security, a large water basin with fresh water and supplemental heat to provide a proper thermal gradient. I find the heat source is very important in many ways. For one, I have not had good feeding response from the snakes when I used a lighted basking spot for heat. Instead, I heat using an 11" heat tape running the length of one side of the cage to provide the same thermal as with hatchlings or an overhead radiant heat panel (my preferred heat source). I have used ceramic emitters, but they get real hot and tend to
dry the cage out too much. In the Midwest where I live, it is very dry especially during the winter months. To increase humidity I place a large water basin under/over the heat source and soak the snakes periodically in lukewarm water for 30 minutes or so. Prior and during shed cycles, I will saturate the enclosure to increase the humidity. Many times the snake knocks over the water bowl and when this happens, I leave the cage wet and refill the water container. However, I keep an eye (and nose) on the cage for urine, which tends to smell when using undertank heating. In those cases, cleaning the cage and replacing the substrate is needed and a quick spray of water to further assist with the imminent shed.
Back to the heat tape, be very careful with using undertank heating. Short-tailed pythons will camp out on the heat tape for days if the air temps are too cool. If your heat tape is set too high, you will get nasty thermal burns. They don't sense the pain from this or at least don't associate the pain with the source of heat. So keep the heat tapes controlled with a reliable proportional thermostat. Rheostat controllers in my experience have too wide of a temperature fluctuation to use with heat tape. I have registered temperatures from 95 to 125F without adjusting the temperature. To minimize problems associated with thermal burns, periodically use an infrared temp gun on the surface to determine the actual surface temperature. Also, inspect the belly of the snake and look for any signs of burning such as rippled belly scales or blistering.
The information documented above works for me and is not the only solution to housing Short-tailed pythons. Variations to this “recipe” are dependent on your ambient room temps, quality of caging, health of the animal, etc. So do your homework. I have been keeping Short-tailed pythons since around 1996 and continue to learn each day as I do with all my animals. I recommend short-tails to anyone wanting a “big” snake in a smaller package that has already had experience with other herps.
(Copyright Rich Crowley. Used with permission.)
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Corn Snakes 101
Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
I was contemplating writing a post about this very subject over the last couple of days, but having written similar ones so often over the last several years on this site and others, I just didn't find the proper motivation to do so. Since the motivation has now been supplied, let me offer a few other thoughts to the newer corn enthusiasts among us:
I. There is only ONE hard and fast rule about cornsnakes, and that is that there are NO hard and fast rules about cornsnakes!
I have seen more things being done in "corn-dom" that SHOULD NOT be able to happen...and yet, they happen ALL the time! So, for every "Thou shalt not..." you hear about corns, I can probably show three or four successful keepers doing just that, which was forbidden. Some of my favorite "Rules" are:
You must never handle your cornsnake for 24hrs (or 48, 72, or whatever...) after it has eaten!
You must ONLY use aspen as bedding material!
You must ONLY feed mice to your corns!
You can NEVER breed a female corn that is less than 250g (or 36" long, or three years old, or whatever)!
The list could go on and on...
I am not saying that these "rules" do not provide good guidelines to follow. In fact, for the novice keeper, these probably ought to be seen more as "rules" until they are sophisticated enough in their understanding of corn husbandry to begin to experiment a little outside of the box.
Where I have my problems with the "rules" has to do as much as with those who are spouting them as with the "rules" themselves. More on that in a minute!
II. RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND!!!!!!!!!
It has been said by more than one person here that there is conflicting information being given in answer to several questions on the board. Part of that is because of the reality of the first part of this post, and part of it is because of what I am getting to in a bit. However, conflicting information is ONLY a problem if you RELY upon it!!!
It is the job of every keeper of animals to be as informed and educated on the husbandry of those animals as is humanly possible. That includes...but is certainly not limited to...asking questions on this site! Read a book, go to a keeper's home to see first hand what is being done, GOOGLE up some information sheets...do almost ANYTHING to find out how to take care of an animal (preferably BEFORE, but certainly AFTER its purchase), since it will be in YOUR care!
If you rely ONLY on this site's forum, you WILL be unprepared for your animal's needs. That is because this forum is not set up to be the single source of cornsnake information, and even though lots of good things can be found here, those valuable posts are not pinned to the top of the forum for your use. Even if they were, you'd still need help from SOME source to learn how to customize what you read to your own situation.
Research, research, research!
III. The definition of a cornsnake "expert" is: Someone, who has been posting on this forum for more than two weeks longer than YOU have!
Too many people here think that just because someone answers a question being asked, that this means the person offering the answer has any clue at all as to what he/she is talking about, when that is certainly NOT a guaranteed truth!
Here's the basic cycle of posters, folks:
Newbie: New owner, usually (but not always!) someone who has no idea about corns, but thought they'd be "cool" and bought one without any research whatsoever. These guys ask anything and everything CONSTANTLY!
Newbie-plus-two-weeks: These guys are the ones who were asking the questions two weeks ago, but are now endowed with the "rules" they had quoted to them (by previous "newbie-plus-two-weeks" people!). These folks LOVE to answer all of the newbies questions with the "FACTS" they have absorbed through their extensive education on this site.
Newbie-plus-one-year: These people are starting to learn how the system works, and have actually began to think outside of the box. They have gotten past the "newbie-plus-two-weeks" period and are now tired of answering the same questions over and over. They are actually now thankful for the "newbie-plus-two-weeks" people, because they answer most of the questions on this site so the "newbie-plus-one-year" people don't have to!
Newbie-plus-two-years: These are the folks who are breeding for the first time, and have an entirely new set of questions to ask. The difference is that now they ask questions of substance, and they know to whom the questions ought to be directed. Lots of genetics questions involving how it all works, rather then just "what do I get if I cross..." type questions, from these folks.
Newbie-plus-several-years: These are the folks who post the least and have the most to say. They are the ones that usually stay out of the fray unless 1) There is something blatantly wrong being passed off as a "rule" by an "expert" of two weeks, or 2) There is a question asked that really needs a specific answer from someone who has "been there" and "done that." These people tend to fade on and off of this site (and others), because they get a belly-full of all the back and forth that goes on between people in this business/hobby/passion, and may appear to be a "newbie" when they come back after a long absence. One of the most fun things on these sites is to see a "newbie-plus-two-weeks" person trying to correct the writings of a recently returned "newbie-plus-several-years" person!
Newbie-plus-several-decades: These are the only real experts among us. They hardly ever post, unless they are addressed by name. While they are truly busy trying to make money for their families, they usually take the time to answer questions from people here on this site, because they truly care about the animals and those who keep them. While enough good cannot be said about these folks...they are not infallible, and whatever they say does not become the new sets of "rules" to start the process all over again...though that is exactly how some folks here take them. Sad, really...
OK. Notice that everyone listed is a "newbie" of some sort?!? That's because there is ALWAYS something to learn, ALWAYS somewhere to go to for help, ALWAYS some way to become better at keeping these animals we all love! NO ONE has it all down pat, folks...least of all those who have only been keeping these animals for a very brief period of time, and so it is up to YOU to figure out what YOU need to do in YOUR situation with YOUR cornsnakes!
There's lots of people here to help, but that's all it is. YOU still have to wade through all of the posts, all of the books, and all of the "experts" to determine what is best for YOU.
Then...
Come back and tell us what you did, and we'll try not to make more "rules" out of the experience!
(Copyright Darren Chappell. Used with permission.)
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