Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This little beauty is in the possession of my good friend Carl Barden. She was found in the wild here in Central Florida last week and is flawless. He operates a venom lab and has a large collection of unique animals. She is totally amazing in person and just glows. Not sure if there are anymore out there or not. I took these today and wanted to share them, thanks Geroge

It looks gravid.My friend had a albino texas it died a few years ago .If they could be bred out what a cool snake to have.
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Archie Bottoms

Yeah she does look gravid, that would be nice, and so would finding anyone who may have a male or has worked with raising the hatchlings, thanks George

I have heard of them being found but never anyone have any success with producing them due to the fact they are so difficult to begin with. Every one I've heard of someone having I've heard died before they produced any. With the difficulty in rearing them I would have to say if he has any success they will be a "HOT!!!!" item (no pun intended haha). Seriously they will have a very high demand in the market.

Well he has a great system down for keeping them long term, he maintains over 35 at any one time, but yes the babies are a real chore. We have a few ideas that we are going to try, after looking at her, you just have to figure it out, lol. The white color, which should be black, is almost transparent, you can see her organs in some areas. He has hatched them out before, but usually releases the babies because of the difficulties. Time will tell, thanks for the reply, George

I'd like to hear more about this "system" for keeping corals?
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Brad,
What system? LOL!
Eastern coral's hardly ever eats rodents like tenere's.
I am sure the is the guy is feeding his eastern's snakes.
I have kept and caught many eastern's when I lived in Florida, and I have heard of a few people who claim they have transferred theirs over to rodents, but have never seen it. I had one I caught while out hunting, put it in a bag with a green snake I had caught earlier, and when I got home, the green snake was gone! LOL! Go figure!
LOL!
Randal

LOL-That's why I asked-my experience with easterns has been dismal at best!
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

I put this post together a long time ago, but it is worth repeating here in this topic.

I have been keeping a coral snake for over one year now without feeding it any natural food items in an ongoing experiment. All meals have been an artificial mixture by tube feeding. I have experimented with this a few times before with mixed results. I thought I’d share my recipe as this could be useful for some hard to maintain, acclimate or start snakes. I have been getting normal sheds and the snake seems to be thriving. All signs of a decent mix.

I use Gerber meat baby foods, alternating between Veal, Turkey and Lamb. I use to mix all three together, but my results improved by alternating them.

To one 2.5 oz jar I add one heaping baby-food spoon amount of buttermilk powder, one heaping baby food spoon of Rep Cal Ultra fine calcium, one dropper full squirt of baby vitamins, and enough Pediatric electrolyte to make the mix easy to squirt though a catheter tube with a syringe. I mix it all with a really small whisk in a drill, using it like your mom’s mixer for cake mix.

Here’s pictures of each product I robbed off the web-

Gerber 2nd Foods Beef & Beef Gravy Baby Food 2.5 oz.
Generic picture of the Beef, but I usually use Veal, Lamb or Turkey flavor.

Rep Cal Ultrafine Calcium with D3
100% natural Oyster Shell phosphorous-free calcium carbonate with added Vitamin D3 to aid in the absorption of calcium.

SACO Buttermilk Powder
A Cultured Blend of Sweet Cream Churned Buttermilk, Sweet Dairy Whey, and Lactic Acid.

Enfamil Poly-Vi-Sol Multivitamin Supplement Drops 1.69oz.
Has an eye dropper-like bottle cap for easy dispensing.

Walgreens Pediatric Electrolyte Oral Maintenance Solution, Unflavored
Probably ends up being about five tablespoons, I just wing it with this ingredient.

Gerber baby spoons
Soft bite infant spoons, silicone coating
Maybe too much information, but somebody would probably want to know…

You might think a coral would be too delicate or suffer from the stress of the procedure, but so far that has not been proved to be the case.

Some pictures of the guinea pig, err, I mean coral snake…

My advice is keep corals with access to very damp or downright wet tub of sphagnum at all times. They do not get blister disease. Dry will kill them. Easy with the Rep cal, you do not want to make cement mix, again, you will kill them. For very long term use, I would add some probiotic, but this is proven to be o.k. for fifteen months as is. Best of luck with the little gem.

Hope this is useful to somebody!

That's a very useful recipe I will at some time difinately end up using it. I have searched for a good proven mixture and even asked some very good vets. For some reason they seem to think the best thing to do is grind up thawed mice in a food processer. I guess they haven't ever tried it then tried to force the chunky mixture through a syringe. Thank you for posting this.

Fascinating. Those pictures are awesome.
Is the snake being restrained by a gloved hand while feeding(question mark-keyboard key is broken)

I believe they use thier hands, they are so small and the gloves just do not give the feel of knowing how the animal will move. It is a very effortless procedure with minimal stress to the animal, thanks George

That picture does show a gloved hand. I found that really was the least stressful to the snake. In fact, you are barely restraining it until you get down to business, and then they always try to back out. It’s pretty easy to have your way and get it done. It’s very simple. They are too delicate to pin in the normal way, their fangs always make their mouth bleed a bit if you pin them. You really don’t need to.

I met a guy at a georgia reptile show that had one on display and he said he's had it almost three years. I asked him what he feeds it and he told me that he's tried feeding it everything he can get his hands on and the only thing it's ever eaten for him was goldfish. I was shocked but he swore that it was the truth and even had a friend confirm it.

My friend also use a mixture much like the previous post described. I am not sure of the exact ingredients, but tube feeding is the method and he has some of the best Corals i have ever seen. Most are long term animals and a few over 30 inches have been with him for years. He maintains a colony of 30 or so animals and they do very well. Thanks for the interest, i will be posting a few pics of another very unique animal in his collection shortly, thanks George

I did get it to eat some skinks, but it would eat goldfish like candy.

Are you the guy I met in Atlanta? With the huge display cage you built that you spent the entire show complaining about?

Ummm, no, i just posted a pic. Never been to Atlanta.

That was a reply to agkistrodude. I was asking him if he was the one I spoke to.

If your beautiful female is gravid, you biggest challenge will be the neonates. I've over the course of 30 years maintained adult Ea. Corals from time to time with success using tube feedings, snakes, glass lizards (seem to be a fav) and Eumeces ssp skinks. I spent 3 yrs trying to entice them over to pinks using senting, stuffing reptiles with pinks etc..all with little success to the conversion. Damp,(not wet) moss for a substrate seems to offer cover and keeps the stress to a minimum. Water should be offered clean at all times as they tend to dehydrate very quickly. Over this period I only once had the opportunity to collect a gravid female and successfully hatched out a 6 clutch 100%. Again, stress is important when dealing with Micrurus. My best results came from field collecting gravid or finding eggs from small Eumeces ssp, (five-lined skinks) and hatching them, ( preps are just like hatching the easier colubrids). The juvie Corals ate them like champs. I even got them to the point of eating f/t skinks. Just a suggestion.
Bob

>>This little beauty is in the possession of my good friend Carl Barden. She was found in the wild here in Central Florida last week and is flawless. He operates a venom lab and has a large collection of unique animals. She is totally amazing in person and just glows. Not sure if there are anymore out there or not. I took these today and wanted to share them, thanks Geroge
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WoW that is soooo cool!!

Talk about getting LUCKY!!!!

SATAN
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