I do not own (and never have owned) any of these beautiful animals...Too cheap (frugal?) to buy a captive-bred one, and too caring to willingly cause the death of yet another wild-caught one. Therefore, I freely admit having NO personal experience with them. From what I have read, mostly on these forums, the wild-caught animals have a huge mortality rate. Please correct me, experts, if I am mistaken. The above post mentioned that they were "difficult" and I suspect that this is an understatement.



It seems to me that this snake is one example of how importers are "making a buck" by killing vast numbers of these snakes. Obviously somebody had to work with some wild ones in order to begin establishing a c/b stock (and it's great that they did), but I strongly suspect that many individuals are taking a chance on a w/c one to save money and winding up torturing it to death. I am not a big fan of keeping w/c snakes in general, although that is a slightly different discussion. I am personally vehemently opposed to the catching, selling, and ultimately purchasing of snakes with such a high mortality rate. OK...I got that off my chest. :D

[ Hide Replies ]

• Mandarin Ratsnake - billanddee, Tue Mar 8 05:35:53 2005
• RE: Mandarin Ratsnake - lolaophidia, Tue Mar 8 06:22:29 2005
• RE: Mandarin Ratsnake - billanddee, Tue Mar 8 06:28:45 2005
• Please don't run out and buy a wild-caught one.......... - duffy, Tue Mar 8 18:17:56 2005
• RE: Please don't run out and buy a wild-caught one.......... - jasonmattes, Tue Mar 8 21:49:39 2005
• RE: Please don't run out and buy a wild-caught one.......... - calsnakes, Wed Mar 9 16:44:00 2005