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This one's for John Firneno who was interested in seeing a picture of my male Mandarin ratsnake. This male is a second generation (F2) captive bred animal, born October 8th 2004 and originating from Northern Vietnam. This snake is from the same line as John Firneno's pair. To be honest, I'm not completely satisfied with how the picture turned out. I did a little tweaking of the picture, but still the image is not 100% accurate with the reality. In reality the yellow colour is brighter. Also, in the picture the head of the snake doesn't have much yellow colour, while the truth is that the snake actually has a bright yellow head. Well, enjoy the picture anyway. More pictures will follow.

Mandarin ratsnake (Euprepiophis mandarinus), 2 year old second generation captive bred male from Northern Vietnam.

Regards,

Bert Grit
The Netherlands

He's a beauty. I see the family resemblance! It may not capture the colors perfectly in your opinion but it's a very nice looking picture anyway. I got three meals into the male already and two into the female (she's in shed right now). I have to say I'm already enjoying the viets immensely. And they've calmed down incredibly. They don't spook at all.

Best regards
John

Hi John,

Good to hear that the mandarinus are doing fine. I had the male out for a photosession (more pictures from this session will follow) and he tolerated it really well. He was just lying there for about 10-15 minutes, so there was enough time to take pictures. By the way, he will often stress a little when I approach him, but he handles like a Red ratsnake! My male laticinctus on the other hand, is a little spawn from hell! Hopefully, I will get him to calm down eventually; it just takes some time I reckon.

Regards,

Bert

Sounds real good Bert. Well the latis make up for in looks what they lack in good behavior. They are indeed beautiful (as are all the bamboo rats). One of these days I'll start working with that family. Again congrats on some extremely nice asians
Regards
John

>>Hi John,
>>>>Good to hear that the mandarinus are doing fine. I had the male out for a photosession (more pictures from this session will follow) and he tolerated it really well. He was just lying there for about 10-15 minutes, so there was enough time to take pictures. By the way, he will often stress a little when I approach him, but he handles like a Red ratsnake! My male laticinctus on the other hand, is a little spawn from hell! Hopefully, I will get him to calm down eventually; it just takes some time I reckon.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Bert

John, sounds like the Viets calm down better than Chinese mandarinus. Do they feed better too?

Terry

but it's possible. Here's a pair of hatchlings that were first sent across the Atlantic. Then they were held up by the airlines and stuck in Chicago for a day. Then they reached Pennsylvania and were held in good conditions at Gregg Feaster's house for a few days and then shipped up to Massachusetts. Then to add insult to injury instead of waiting a decent week for acclimation, I flash them repeatedly with a camera in the night and daylight and then after only two days in their new home I offer them food. And they took it first night!

So compared to a lot of hatchling mandarins they were pretty cooperative with feeding. But I had told the breeder that I was more interested in good eaters than anything else. So that definitely had something to do with it.

>>John, sounds like the Viets calm down better than Chinese mandarinus. Do they feed better too?
>>
>>Terry
>>

Slip of the finger while editing. After writing how I thought they could be better feeders I remembered Bert Grit telling me that his viet refused voluntary feeding for a very long time. Then when I changed the title of the message I hit the send button before I added that information. Very clumsy of me.

Anyway, I guess it'll have to wait until a couple of clutches hatch out in this country to tell if there seems to be a difference.

Either way this pair is treating me well.

Best regards
John

Well, John, I'm happy for ya, and I hope they turn out to handle really well too. Keep us posted on progress and how big they get, etc. Thanks...

TC

Terry,

The German breeder from whom I got my male and John got his pair is also working with mandarinus from China (both South-East China and Sichuan Province) and he says that the specimens from Northern Vietnam are slightly more difficult. It's not uncommon that Vietnamese hatchlings refuse to feed during the first year of life (it happened to me and a breeder who has been breeding Mandarin ratsnakes for many years and many others) and the adults seem to be more difficult to breed. The German breeder has 2 different lines of North Vietnamese Mandarin ratsnakes, both consisting of 5-6 year old adults and so far one line has been producing offspring every year since 2003, whereas the other line only produced offspring in 2005, if I remember correctly. The German breeder says that Vietnamese Mandarin ratsnakes are more high strung, but at 2 years of age my male is rather calm. He will hiss, puff, rattle his tail and take the 'about-to-strike'-position when disturbed, but he doesn't bite and he handles like a Cornsnake.

Regards,

Bert Grit

Regards,

Bert

I'm sure the differences tie in with the habitat and ecology. North Vietnam is mostly mountainous, so they might have rather cool temps nearly year 'round. I think winters would be fairly warm, but drier than the rest of the year. These Mandarins might brumate in moist earth to avoid dessication and cooler temps. I think the rains start around end of March or beginning of April, as in Thailand, but haven't confirmed that. I keep my Chinese and Sichuan Mandarins bottom shelf, low to mid-70's and they seem to do well. No flightiness. Good luck with those Viet Mandies. I think they get pretty big and hope to hear back on that. Beautiful snakes. Thanks...

Terry

Terry,

The German breeder who breeds these mandarinus from Northern Vietnam also breeds mandarinus from Sichuan Province and South-East China and he said that hatchlings from South-East China are the smallest and hatchlings from Northern Vietnam are the largest. Hatchlings from Sichuan Province are in size in between these two locales. The adult Vietnamese mandarinus from the breeder (wich are approximately 6 years old) are 4-5 feet in length, about the same size as adult Sichuanese mandarinus I reckon.

Regards,

Bert

>>Terry,
>>
>>The German breeder who breeds these mandarinus from Northern Vietnam also breeds mandarinus from Sichuan Province and South-East China and he said that hatchlings from South-East China are the smallest and hatchlings from Northern Vietnam are the largest. Hatchlings from Sichuan Province are in size in between these two locales. The adult Vietnamese mandarinus from the breeder (wich are approximately 6 years old) are 4-5 feet in length, about the same size as adult Sichuanese mandarinus I reckon.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Bert

that some particular species of snake is better off being bred only once every two years. I wonder if it is a snake like these?
-----
phflame
kingsnake.com host

It could be, I really don't know. One line of the mandarinus from Northern Vietnam that the German breeder is working with produces offspring annually though...

Bert