Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone, I'm looking into adding another snake to my collection, and I'm kind of conflicted on what to look into. I have experience with corns, cal kings, rubber boas, and all of the snakes in my signature below. I'd like to expand into something perhaps a little bigger than I already have, or a little more "advanced". Basically just something a little different from the easy to keep species I have now. I've already looked into some of the larger boas (red tail, dumerils) but I don't know if I have enough space. Space wise, I have room for a 4 foot by 2 foot tank, with probably a max of around 3 feet high. My only real requirement is that it be fairly calm and handleable. Besides that, I'm open to any sugestions you guys may have. Thanks for any responses!
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0.1 Splendida Kingsnake
1.0 Ball Python
1.0 Sinaloan Milksnake
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Mexican Black King
0.1 Rough Scale Sand Boa

Dumerils are really cool snakes. I've had mine for about a year and its super mellow.
You might look into carpet pythons. They are very cool snakes, coastal carpets get the biggest so maybe look at the jungle or my personal favorite the Irian Jaya carpets.
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Jason

N/P

As my accounting professor would say, "everything is situational." What I may consider an intermediate snake may be a beginner/expert snake to you.

Pituophis (pines, bulls, gophers), any hognose specie, false water cobras, garter snakes, indigo snakes, just to name a few.

But ask yourself, what do you like about snake keeping. I can see you like constrictors with a preference for Lampropeltis (kings/milks), followed by boas, then pythons. If you like snakes from a certain area (africa, south america, etc.), try to obtain all the species of snakes from that area. You can always try breeding.

many people keep redtail boas in cages that are 4'x2' with no problem, just make sure they have enough hiding spots. My suggestion would be to fill the bottom with several inches of aspen, that way they can hide just about anywhere in the cage they want to. Mine is in a 6'x 2'x2' cage, and my argentine boa is in a 6'x2.5'x2' cage. If you like the boa constrictor look, but worried about the size, you might want to check out the hogg island boa...they do not get nearly as large as their mainland brothers; a male could be housed in a 40 gallon breeder his whole life easily. Another good option is the brazilian rainbow boa...not a very large boa, but their care is alittle more specific. If you get one, just set the cage up first and make sure you have the temps (they tolerate a very narrow range) and the humidity (very very high) exactly where they need it, and they are very simple beyond that!

this is my argentine boa (I know, I've posted this same pic several times before, but it's so cool!)

this is my hogg island boa, she's still pretty young.

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-David

Check out my pet pics at:
http://www.myspace.com/obx_fisherman

1.0 ball python (Pandora - don't ask)
1.0 argentine boa (Prometheus)
0.1 hogg island boa (Andromeda)
0.0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (Inara)
1.0 kenyan sand boa (Diablo)
1.0 normal corn snake(Cypress)
0.1 amery. corn snake (Morgan LaFay)
0.0.2 baby corns (Romulus and Remus)
- 1 normal, 1 ghost
0.0.1 banded cali. kingsnake (Cain)
1.0 tangerine honduran milksnake (Narcissus)
0.0.1 snow corn snake (Valkyrie)
1.0 amazon tree boa (Pegasus)
1.0 colombian boa (Poseidon)
0.1 albino san diego gopher snake (Athena)
0.0.1 sandfish skink (Slick)
0.0.1 fire skink (Phoenix)
1.0 dog (Luke)

the wife's pets:
1.0 bearded dragon (Leonidas)
1.1 ferrets (Ares, Enyo)
0.0.1 betta fish (Captain Morgan)
1.2 cats (Galahad, Ripley and Sassy)
0.1 Boxer

I have found pythons to be very interesting captives. Savu pythons are really neat. I consider them a step up in difficulty because they require a warm cage (not just a cold cage and a heat pad) and some humidity (can be a humidity box, doesn't have to be entire cage.) They get about 4ft but more girthy than a Cal king for sure. A 4ft cage is plenty of room, more than enough.

Along those lines, a male Jungle carpet python is also an interesting captive. Hard to describe, but they have a personality to them. They will make use of shelves and/or branches, which makes cage setups very interesting if you want to use your imagination to make a more vertical cage.

IMO both of these snakes require more attention to husbandry details than a kingsnake does, yet they are also tolerant of some husbandry mistakes. That is what makes them a great step-up from most colubrids.
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Mark