Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This Yellow Ratsnake was caught in southern Brevard County on April 10 of 2005......he was extremely thin and obviously had a rough life out on his own in the wild!. When captured, he only weighed 97.3 grams at 40" long!!.........so I affectionately named him "Slim-Jim"......exactly one year later when this photo was taken, he weighed in at a MUCH better weight of 250.5 grams!, and gained 6" in length.......it turns out that his feeding response is not quite as "sharp" as in most ratsnakes, with the typical "lightning-fast" strike at the prey item. This is why I suspect he was only able to capture prey a much smaller percentage of the time in the wild........"Slim-Jim" has it much easier than he did in the wild, and is doing very well with captive life!............................................Doug

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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

Nice, he does'nt look dirty like some yellow rat snakes.
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-J.Hill

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Nice job Doug! He looks great! Yellows are my hands-down favorite NA rat snakes. This is definitely one of those instances where plucking the animal out of the wild gave the animal a much better life.

Billy

>>This Yellow Ratsnake was caught in southern Brevard County on April 10 of 2005......he was extremely thin and obviously had a rough life out on his own in the wild!. When captured, he only weighed 97.3 grams at 40" long!!.........so I affectionately named him "Slim-Jim"......exactly one year later when this photo was taken, he weighed in at a MUCH better weight of 250.5 grams!, and gained 6" in length.......it turns out that his feeding response is not quite as "sharp" as in most ratsnakes, with the typical "lightning-fast" strike at the prey item. This is why I suspect he was only able to capture prey a much smaller percentage of the time in the wild........"Slim-Jim" has it much easier than he did in the wild, and is doing very well with captive life!............................................Doug
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>>Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

Very nice, Doug! Glad to hear Slim is doing better indoors. I just field collected my first snake, a Harquahala Rosy Boa. It's posted in the Field Herping forum, if you want to check it out. I've seen a ton of other snakes, but this one needed to come home with me!
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Diego

Diego & Tiffany's Zoo:
SNAKES
2.4.0 Corn Snakes (Different morphs)
1.1.0 Hypo Everglades Rat Snakes
2.1.0 Baird's Rat Snakes
1.2.0 Trans-Pecos Rat Snakes
1.1.0 Trinket Rat Snake
1.0.0 Japanese Rat Snake
1.1.0 Salt and Pepper Bull Snakes
0.1.0 Amel Pacific Gopher Snake
1.0.0 Het Amel San Diego Gopher Snake
0.1.0 San Diego Gopher Snake
3.2.0 Sonoran Gopher Snakes
0.1.0 Amel Sonoran Gopher Snakes
1.1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake
2.1.0 Gray Banded Kingsnakes (2.1 River Road)
1.0.0 Hypermelanistic California Kingsnake
0.1.0 Albino High White California Kingsnake
0.2.0 California Kingsnakes
1.1.0 Thayeri Kingsnake
0.1.0 Florida Kingsnake
1.1.0 Boa Constrictors
0.1.0 Dumeril's Boa
2.0.0 Rosy Boas (Mexican & Mid Baja)
1.1.0 Kenyan Sand Boas
0.1.0 Indonesian Dwarf Pacific Boa
1.1.0 Ball Pythons
1.0.0 Woma Python
1.1.0 Cape York Spotted Pythons
1.1.0 Macklot's Pythons
1.1.0 Western Hognoses
1.1.0 Red Sided Garter Snakes

LIZARDS
1.0.0 Frilled Dragon
3.1.0 Bearded Dragons (2 Normal, 1 RedXGold, 1 Citrus)
0.1.0 Eastern Collared Lizard
1.0.0 African Fat-Tail Gecko
0.1.0 Merauke Blue Tongue Skink
1.4.0 Leopard Geckos
1.0.1 Yellow Niger Uromastyx
1.1.0 Chuckwalla
0.1.0 Banded Gecko

FROGS
2.2.0 Southern Bell Frogs
1.0.1 Green Tree Frogs
1.0.0 Bubbling Kassina
1.1.1 White's Tree Frogs
0.0.2 Gold Frogs

Was it caught near a residential area?? If so many of the snakes get fixed on anoles and they also get a pretty regular dose of poison from the lawn guys through the anoles who get it through the bugs that the lawn guys target. I have noticed a bunch of thin barrier island snakes and they usually will refuse rodents at first as well. Anoles are so common and easy for young snakes that they get fixed on them and as adults they can still find enough to survive, just not thrive.

Jason

As a matter of fact, I'm sure his main diet in this area was anoles(as they are very abundant), but the sparse neighborhoods are very "wooded", so I don't think that potential poisoning was an issue in his particular case. But It's funny you brought the subject up, because I've often wondered just as you stated, that some populations of snakes must surely be effected being in some urban locations where the anole(and human) population is very heavy!......a good example of this would be smack in the middle of Ft. Lauderdale!.....there are anoles everywhere you look down there and are virtually in every shrub and tree! Doug
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

n/p
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

Don't forget birds. They can carry/pass along all sorts of baddies I bet. I know of a locale where the yellows are mostly arboreal. Rodents use those trees too.
Where there are humans, there are rodents.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

That's very true!,....I'm sure he was able to snag a few birds as well in the wild, as there are plenty of trees in the wooded area, birds are notorious carriers of diseases. I'm just glad he's doing very well in his captive environment. He always had a very slow, clumsy feeding response, but he gets the job done. And he doesn't have to worry about the prey getting away now!lol......he eats much healthier F/T rats and mice now. Doug
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

Hi Doug,
Are you in the Melbourne Palm Bay area? I live in Mims and work in Cocoa. Perhaps we can road cruise sometime? Buddy.

STUNNING! Nice work getting him in shape.