I appreciate the kind words. Though I'm a "milk-head" at heart, I couldn't pass up the chance to work with these beautiful animals from a rarely seen locale. They've been a pleasure to keep, and I'm impressed with how well they feed and how quickly they've grown. At around 14 months old they're just shy of 3 feet in length and take adult mice with gusto. While certainly not as quick-growing as P. c. sayi I've kept, they beat the pants off of the small milksnakes I'm used to!

With regard to their husbandry, I keep the P. deppei deppei individually in smallish plastic tubs (perimeter = 1.5-2 times the length of the animal). My experience has shown that small tubs work best with small, nervous milks to improve feeding response and discourage regurgitation, so I figured I'd try similar husbandry techniques on these reportedly delicate Pits. I use shredded aspen as a substrate and keep water available at all times. I offer all of my animals a wide thermal gradient (~88F on the hot end to ~70F on the cool end), which also promotes healty digestion and improves feeding response (...and allows better disease resistance, as John Ginter pointed out in a thread below).

Thanks again, guys!
-Cole

[ Hide Replies ]

• P. d. deppei with locality data - Sunherp, Thu Oct 29 15:18:22 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - ginter, Thu Oct 29 16:05:28 2009
• Nice....NP - RichH, Thu Oct 29 17:09:12 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - monklet, Thu Oct 29 17:24:52 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - DISCERN, Thu Oct 29 19:42:58 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - mattkau, Thu Oct 29 19:53:00 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - hermanbronsgeest, Fri Oct 30 04:48:24 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - randywhittington, Fri Oct 30 07:11:08 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - sjohn, Fri Oct 30 07:43:07 2009
• Thanks, guys! - Sunherp, Fri Oct 30 09:30:35 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - Jason Nelson, Fri Oct 30 12:32:47 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - okeeteekid, Fri Oct 30 15:33:30 2009
• RE: P. d. deppei with locality data - Spankenstyne, Sat Oct 31 14:32:50 2009
• RE: Here you go Spanky. - terryd, Sun Nov 1 20:39:33 2009