Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here's an imported Mandarin from S. China that I acquired from a friend MANY years ago. As a matter of fact, my friend had him for about five years.
During this time, he searched forever trying to find a female for it, as all there was available at that time were (if any) w/c imports. This was before there were ANY captive-bred animals available at all!.
The ones that did "trickle" into the country usually looked great!, but would soon die, usually within just days due to being notorious for their high-stress factor, and heavy parasite loads.
He was one of the very few that was able to adapt to captive life from the wild. He was a good eater, but was extremely particular about what size and type of food he would accept.
He preferred chubby, helpless rat fuzzies to prey that would walk around in the cage, this is probably due to him being more of a "nest raider" in his wild habitat. He also usually preferred to eat a several at a time if left in the corner of the cage over night(as they are nocturnal), but would eat them in front of me if I VERY VERY slowly, and carefully placed them in without him knowing I was there. During the many years I owned him, he only ever ate one adult mouse that entire time, and was the ONLY time I EVER witnessed him constrict anything!. Usually he would just crawl up to the fuzzies and gobble them up without moving his body at all.
It just so happened,right about the time I sold him, there were just starting to be some adult C/B animals available, although they were extremely expensive then. A pair of C/B adults were worth about $3500 then. I wish I still had him today, but was forced to sell him along with many of my animals back some years ago.
Anyway, he was a very cool snake, and I enjoyed owning him for many years!
best regards,
Doug

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

He's a gorgeous animal, it's too bad you don't still have him. ~Sarah

Dave:
That's a nice looking mandarin. Did your friend mention anything special about acclimating that snake? For instance, did it thrive from the start or did it take a while to come around. Did he do anything special? Did he dose for parasites right away or wait till later?

I tried a few wild caughts back about six years ago. They started out okay and slowly deteriorated over time. A very depressing experience.

Regards
John

>>Dave:
>>That's a nice looking mandarin. Did your friend mention anything special about acclimating that snake? For instance, did it thrive from the start or did it take a while to come around. Did he do anything special? Did he dose for parasites right away or wait till later?
>>
>>I tried a few wild caughts back about six years ago. They started out okay and slowly deteriorated over time. A very depressing experience.
>>
>>Regards
>>John

Thanks!,....I's hard to recall much of what we talked about since it was so long ago, but we both knew a fair amount about their general care needs and their little "quirks".

like needing cooler temps than other coubrids, keeping it more secretive, eating smaller prey(and less often) than others, preferring higher humidity, etc......
I do believed he treated the snake with "Panacur" and "Flagyl" immediately after first getting him, It's a good thing he was a "well-seasoned" herper, or things might hve turned out much differently, as many imports died like flies soon after arrival to the states. He went through several of those experiences, and so did I after acquiring him......to be honest, I really did think I wouldn't have much of a problem keeping imports alive, as I've always been extremely confident about my husbandry abilities, even with other "problem" snakes, but soon found out that they can indeed be very tough to keep alive from the wild.

Anyway, they are very cool snakes, have fun with yours!

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

Great little story on your mandarin Doug! Your experience is the 1st that I have heard regarding a somewhat positive experience with a WC mandarin...too bad you weren't able to get your hands on a female. He was a good looking boy too.
Question for you and John. Do you think that all these mandarins being produced with not as neat and clean patterns are do to repeatedly inbreeding or just breeding two adults who lack perfect, symmetrical patterns?
John, are you working with WC mandarins now by chance?
Ryan

>>Great little story on your mandarin Doug! Your experience is the 1st that I have heard regarding a somewhat positive experience with a WC mandarin...too bad you weren't able to get your hands on a female. He was a good looking boy too.
>>Question for you and John. Do you think that all these mandarins being produced with not as neat and clean patterns are do to repeatedly inbreeding or just breeding two adults who lack perfect, symmetrical patterns?
>>John, are you working with WC mandarins now by chance?
>>Ryan

That's a good question!!,.....but I don't think I could give you the actual answer to that, I just don't know. There are many variables involved with that.

Oh,..and yes he "TRIED" to mate with an import female I bought, but she didn't want anything to do with him!, that REALLY got me "pissed", because he was even grabbing her by the neck trying to mount her! but she kept denying him.(typical girl)!LOL.
Then about 1999 a buddy of mine bought a C/B adult pair and let me have them for a while to see if anything would happen.
Anyway, sadly nothing did with any combination of the trio(my male being the third). This time mine didn't want anything to do with his female, nor did his male!!LOL. That was pretty discouraging, but that's the way things go sometimes!

I don't know if they ever later bred for him or not, as I think he moved from my area.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked him!

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

Ryan:
As far as colors and patterns on mandarins, I think that the amount of natural variation is very large. There are striped mandarins, large diamonds, small diamonds, large ovals, small ovals, grey ground color, red ground color, hypomelanistic, melanistic, hyperxanthic, hypoxanthic, aberrant patterns, etc. I think that trying to maintain a specific pattern and look may actually require inbreeding at some point. It would be simpler if we could really know when we had locale specific groups of mandarins but except for a few cases we don't. But that is one of the things that makes working with this species a challenge.

Regards
John

Here's my female wc I've had since about 2000 I think.

:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Mark,....that's truly a beauty! ~ Doug
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

Great story and nice snake!

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