Posted by:
billysbrown
at Sat Jun 3 09:20:32 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by billysbrown ]
This is a general warning about some egg eating snakes - D. medici.
A lot of E. African Dasypeltis have suddenly come up for sale recently, both on KS and at shows. Most Dasypeltis species will take quail eggs, but not Dasypeltis medici, which, for reference, is shown in this ad on the left:
http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=6&de=411904
They're pretty snakes (slender, light brick red with a darker vertebral stripe and bars down the sides with small white spots along the vertebral stripe), and really cool, but you need to be prepared to find eggs of finches or other passerine birds, small parrots, or pigeons/doves to feed them, no matter what the seller says. A lot of sellers at shows or on KS classifieds will say they take quail eggs, but experienced keepers report that they do not, and they appear to be physically incapable of eating quail eggs.
Quail eggs have relatively thick shells. Egg eating snakes crack open eggs with extensions of their vertebrae, and for some reason, D. medici has relatively short extensions and cannot open eggs with thicker shells.
I bought a pair of D. medici, found them rejecting quail eggs, did the reasearch, and now they're doing well on cockatiel, love bird, and finch eggs, but it does take some work to find the eggs.
Good luck,
Billy
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 egg eating snake alert - billysbrown, Sat Jun 3 09:20:32 2006
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