Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I cant seem to find much information on keeping these snakes.

Been looking at them for a while and would like to get some info on them. I know almost nothing about them. So any kind of information or care sheet would be a help.

6-8' full grown, males being larger

Aspen bedding with a sphagnum moss hide kept moist. Misting once a day.

Water dish cleaned daily, they really like to drink.

70-75 ambient temps with a 85-90 SMALL basking area. They do use these to digest meals.

Rodents, birds, fish, FT dor snakes, lizards, anything they can get down their gullets really. I fed my babies one day after defecation until they hit 4' then switched to small meals every 4-5 days.

Poop a lot and require more cleaning, I hit visible poops every day and give the whole cage a good look over once a week. Replace all substrate every 4 months.

I haven't got to breeding yet but next year will be my first go. Talking with others I believe my snakes are actually Unicolors.

Hope that helps,
Nate

actually that is somewhat misleading nate. if your cribos are drinking heavily then your temps are WAY too high. at 90*, they are merely rehydrating themselves because they are under stress. 80*/82* is the absolute max temp that should be used as this ACTUALLY reflects real daily temps that occur in this area. dth's in central america rarely if ever exceed 80*. that's a fact.......

Whats misleading? I didn't say to keep the whole cage that hot just a small area. I'm keeping my pair individually in Vision 432 cages. The whole cage temp is always around 75, the hot spot is almost exactly 1 square foot at 90 and another square foot around 85. I give them plenty of options, if I had bigger cages I would probably give an even hotter hot spot.

As far as temps in Central America go I have researched temps in most of CA and SA and compiled a pretty good list of average temps. They happen to be on my other computer but if you search the archives I'm sure you could find them. Temps are in the average of 75-85 year round in most places. This is AMBIENT temps and has nothing to do with usable SURFACE temps. Go outside on a 75 degree day and temp gun a sunny spot, they can easily be 100 or more depending on the objects ability to absorb heat.

It is not fact that temps rarely exceed 80.PERIOD

http://www.infocostarica.com/weather/

Regarding my Cribos drinking because I'm keeping them too hot is BS. These snakes "Frequents marshes, swamps and riverbeds" (Costa Rican Natural History, University of Chicago press)sure this is probably because of abundance of food but why wouldn't a fast metabolism snake who hunts and eats frequently not also need to drink frequently?

All my snakes get huge thermo gradients and all of them use them. At any given time on any given day I can find my snakes in any of their hides using any of their given temp and humidity ranges.

What I wrote was in no way an actual care sheet on Drymarchon and not misleading at all. I was just trying to help the guy out, all I lacked was saying this is how I DO IT. No one else gave him any info.... And if next year I get a full clutch of healthy baby uni's I will right a caresheet based on how I did it.

Thanks,
Nate

I agree with Dan's comments, low 80's would be the warmest part of the cage. 90 is way too hot for them. Most Drymarchon keepers will say the same.

Jeremy

I agree with you guys on cage temps I just give a good warm basking area. I would never keep any Drymarchon at an ambient of 90.

I always say to err on the side of cool when you have to make choices. But when you have the space to offer more temp ranges...I am all for it. Shoot, if you want to offer a hot spot of 100F for a cribo, I say go for it as long as you have enough spots from 70-100F for the snake to choose for itself.

This is kind of a no brainer actually. Who knows more about cribos...you, me, or a cribo?

Thanks for everyones help.

I missed some email addresses so if you put it up and i didnt email you please send me a message or put it up again so we can talk