Nate,
I'll start by saying 90% of my knowledge on coachwhips has came from Sighthunter. He lives close to me, and once I got started wanting to work with coachwhips, he kind of coached me through a lot of it (no pun intended.)

When it comes to racers, they definitely key in on movement. I've never had a juvie take anything that was dead, although I've heard of adults taking frozen/thawed. I have a coachwhip right now that will take frozen mice right out of my hands. The biggest thing with them is to give them a big hide and leave them alone. With adult racers, you can handle them some, I've had a few that were downright affectionate, but with the juvies, let them be. They stress easily, and won't eat if you're hounding them all the time.

Everything that I've said for racers can be said for coachwhips, although with coachwhip hatchlings there is no set "pattern." (According to Sighthunter.) Some like crickets, some don't. Some will take hatchling lizards, others won't. Some want frogs. They'll eat each other.

The adults are a complete 180, most of them will eat anything you throw in front of them. In my experience, piceus seem to be more fragile than testaceus, piceus are prone to regurge, whereas testaceus can eat amazingly large food items. Easterns I've never worked with, but I'm getting there. With easterns, I'm picky, I don't like florida easterns, for the most part. I prefer the all black phase with the reddish tail, mostly found in Missouri and Arkansas. Don't get me wrong, Florida has some fine looking animals, just not my favorite, and they're usually the easterns that are offered.

Kevin

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