Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone. I dont normally use this forum, becaus eive never had a Rat Snake before. But i do now so ive come bearing questions. My father found a snake in his work,hidden up in rafters and brought it home. It appeared to be a rubber snake, but it definately wasnt. So now i have this 2-2.4 ft rat snake and am just curoius how to take car eof it. Fed it a mouse the second day i had it and it took it like it hasnt eaten in decades. Anyways. righ tnow i have it set up with some Bed a Beast, a big slab or cork bark it sleeps under, 4 fake plants, and a large water bowl. Ive had it about 4 days, seen it eat,havent seen it soak or drink to my knowledge. temps are just about room temp,and i dont have any special lighting hooked up to it. snakes dont seem to like light much so i dont bother. he slithers around the tank alot,and every now and then hell peak his head out from under his cork bark to see whats going on. i was going to feed him thursday,a week form the last itme he ate. any one have any good tips or anythign to keeping this snake? hes pretty docile, but he acted tough after i fed him. hes fast, but i dont plan on handling him,ill stick to my cozy ball python for that.Thanks in advance,guys!
~Sheryl

Ok, let's see. You only need to feed it once a week. You need some kind of heat source. Light or heat mat unless the room temp is between 80-85 degrees witch it doubt it is. I'm not sure what (Bed A Beast) is made of but don't use cedar or pine as a substrate because they can be deadly to reptiles. Try to feed it again in about 4 or 5 days. Hope I helped. I have 3 black rats. One is about 7 1/2 feet, the others are 5 feet(That I raised from a hatchling) and about 2 1/2 feet.

ok,well i have many other herps so i have all the supplies. i put an undertank heater under one side of the tank,will this be okay? Bed Beast is basically coconut ground up into dirt. you buy the bricks, soak it in water,and it expands about 8 times its original size into a fine dirt. its workign well so far,the snake seems to be doing great.i heard a hiding snake is a happy snake, and this guy hides most of the time. now are rats nocturnal? im going to try to see if i can switch him over to pre-killed food instead. i am deathly afraid of one of my babies being chewed on by a rodent,so everyones going over to prekilled. think this will be easy to do? well so far so good,let me know if i shoudl do somethign else.thanks so much!

No problem. The undertank heater is fine. Is the bedding moist because if it is it can cause blisters and scale rotting on snakes. It should be 100% dry. Black rats are not nocturnal. The pre-killed mice are fine but I would feed them to the snake still warm to start out with. Hope I helped.

I might be careful of that substrate. The finer it is, the more likely he will ingest some of it whilst feeding.

BTW, Black Rats do become more nocturnal during the summer months. At least around here (OK) they do. That may be a trait that they only adopt in hotter southern climates, to stay out of the heat.
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MichaelB

np

Where are your black rats from? 7.5' that's impressive.

I live in southern middle Tennessee. I caught this guy about 7 years ago and he was about 5 1/2 feet then. I caught him in my grandmother's bathroom. I feed him and medium sized rabbits, and very large rats.

Do they get pretty black around there?

Not really. All the ones I've seen have a very visible pattern. Lots of yellows and reds are visible. Take a look at this pic. That is the average color around here. http://www.fastline.gc.ca/SLINP/blackrat.jpg

Interesting. That's very similar to what most adults look like here in central OK, although around here the lighter areas usually tend more toward brown, occasionally with a decent amount of orange/red. I always attributed that to ingrading with the Texas Rat. Does your 7 footer have that much pattern remaining?
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MichaelB

Yea, he looks just like the ones in that pic but just a whole lot bigger.