Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a less than 1 year old W.C. western Cottonmouth. Does anyone have experiance with this species? It has only been in captivity for about 4 days now. It was offered a hopper which it refused. What are your feeding experiances with this species?

Keith

I kept one very briefly some years ago and found it would only take frogs and toads. Might also try feeder fish in the water bowl.

Mine seems to like his prey a bit on the dead side. I leave it in there for a few days (live at first) then, like i said, after a few days that thing is gone...just a suggestion.

i was referring to mice by the way...i lucked out on him eating those as opposed to frogs and such...

You're keeping venomous so I'm going to make a huge assumption that you have basic husbandry skills...

But anyway... basic husbandry would tell you that a snake that was wild caught 4 days ago not eating isn't anything out of the normal. Cottons eat frogs, fish, mice, etc. However, this time of year they more or less shut down.

I mentioned the 4 day thing in my post to qualify a possible reason why he refused food. And I take no offense at the question of experiance. I have worked with reptiles for over 40 years now. The past 20 has been breeding chondos. I have been making a yearly trip to catch moccosins for about 25 years now, but just never did bring one home and didn't know what to expect.

Thanks for the comments. I will try leaving something in "dead." I was hoping for more comments about how easy they were. Raymond Ditmers goes on and on about how he kept one for many years and it was the easiest snake he ever kept?

>>I was hoping for more comments about how easy they were. Raymond Ditmers goes on and on about how he kept one for many years and it was the easiest snake he ever kept?

In that case maybe I CAN help.

I've only worked with a couple of wild caught ones, but once they settled down, they were not a problem. I have a group of 5 siblings (accidentally captive bred) that I've had since birth. It took a couple of weeks to get them all eating regularly, but ever since they've been very easy to keep. Throw a medium rat in each cage and you can just stand there and watch them all disappear at once. They don't care what's going on in the room, whether they're in shed, they just eat. I don't remember the last time one skipped a meal...

I've been keeping them since 1974 and have always fed them f/t with no arguements once they settled in. Like Bobby said, being wc they may have shut down for the season depending on where you got them.

Personally, I would avoid feeding frogs and fish to avoid possible parasite issues. I remember reading a paper once detailing the diet of cottonmouths and it was primarily rodents anyway for this particular group.
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Tim Cole
www.Designeratrox.com/
www.AustinReptileService.net
www.AustinReptileExpo.com/
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Conservation through Education

Several years ago I was given a newborn, one of 2 dropped in September by a sixteen inch (!) WC snake. It started right up on thawed pinks, had a few meals, and quit in October. I would expect that many others would not start so easily, though. For 5 years mine was a consistent mouse feeder. It would quit every fall & was cooled. BTW, it was always an extremely shy and defensive snake, i.e. demon spawn. Was glad to find it a new home when I had to downsize. Good luck with yours.