Well, I debated with myself for a while over where to put this, but these snakes are MUCH more like garter and ribbon snakes than they are other small snakes such as dekay's, ringnecks, red bellied snakes and so forth that normally fit into small terrestrial snakes, and that forum seems pretty dead anyways...So I decided to share them with everyone here.
These are my new Red Necked Keelbacks, Rhabdophis subminiatus, that I picked up on saturday at Hamburg. Note: these are NOT garter snakes even though they very closely resemble them. I had them probed and they are definite male/female. I am always after keelbacks because they are almost identical to garter snakes in care, personality, and diet, and these snakes are no exception. When I bought them they were a bit dehydrated and had some dry shed, but a good soak made all of that go away and tonight they were cruising the 20 long and I was right in guessing they were ready to eat. They each had a small aquatic frog (i got them to jumpstart the feeding response seeing as frogs are their favorite) and following the frogs they each had 3 feeder guppies and half a large blacknose dace fish right off the tongs, heck they even chased my tongs around for more!!! I am THRILLED at how well they are doing in my care and am hoping to produce some CB once these two get a bit larger and chunkier!
They are both extremely handelable(i am well aware they are rear fanged) and curious little buggers! And they quickly (as in since saturday) have become a favorite species of mine. You don't get any more gartery than these guys without actually being garters!
Here are three pics, the last two are the male still swallowing some fish! I hope you like them and hope you guys don't mind me posting them here instead of over in the dead small snakes section.
