...and racers.

Lots of replies and some questions to the post on March 20. Sorry I did not reply sooner--for what it's worth, here goes:

To Kevin's question re: dietary supplement, one option is to buy some Canthaxanthin supplements from a health food distributor. Canthaxanthin is sold as a dietary supplement and is taken in a gelcap. Each gelcap contains a small amount of liquid Canthaxanthin. If you have a coachwhip with red or pink potential, and if your snake is eating defrotsted or killed prey, you might try slipping a Canthaxanthin gelcap into the body of the food animal before feeding it to the snake. I don't think pink coachwhips need constant dosing with color enhancers, but periodic dosing will probably keep them looking bright. There is also Canthaxanthin in store-bought chicken. I've fed raw chicken to two of my coachwhips, and their pink color increased afterward. Canthaxanthin, BTW, is the color enhancer used for captive flamingoes in zoos. Speaking of chicken, sometimes snakes that are reluctant to eat will eat chicken or chicken-scented prey--worth a shot if you have a problem eater.

To Benjamin's question regarding lighting, I tried ZooMed lights and was not entirely satisfied with them. I prefer Lumichrome, as those have the highest Color Rendering Index of any manufactured bulb, unless there is brand-new news on that front I'm not yet aware of. Lumichrome 6500K have a CRI of 98. Sunlight has a CRI of 100. I buy Lumichrome bulbs in bulk at budgetlighting.com. You need to go to the search box at the top right corner of the page and enter "Lumichrome" then click "search" to get to Budget Lighting's Lumichrome page. Best price I've found if you need a lot of bulbs, as I do. However, if Benjamin is having good luck with ZooMed bulbs, perhaps there is no need to switch. Snakes are less sensitive to light than lizards, so if things are going well, I say let it ride--I'm not a believer in tinkering with success.

To regalringneck (hi and good to see you're still around, BTW): that's a dandy setup for a small coachwhip. Lots of security and places to climb. I have branches like that in my smaller whipsnake (Sonoran Whipsnake) cage and she seems to be more comfortable with them than without. Also, cool pic of the King eating the coachwhip, which I did notice was a road kill from the guts oozing out the cloaca. Waste not. Very nice King, too.

To joscovry: my snakes will sometimes periscope into the slipstream created by the air moving through the cage and flick their tongues into the flow. I'm reminded of dogs sticking their heads out of car windows to ramjet air into their nostrils (dogs must think technology is way cool). Good air flow also carries the odor of live mice (always some live mice nearby for spur-of-the-moment feeding) into the cages, which may explain why my snakes seem to always be ready to eat--it's like living in a house where there is always a Thanksgiving turkey in the oven--drool! Great looking cages too BTW. I don't shoot digital yet so a friend has promised to take photos of my cages with his digital setup so I can finally post some pics.

Sighthunters rule!

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