Reptile & Amphibian Forums

About 10 days ago I was given a milk snake that was caught near my sisters home. She is about 20 inches long and looks quite healthy and plump with no visible sores and good looking scales.

I set her up in a 10 gallon tank for now with aspen bedding, a large water dish and a stone hide at one end. I'm currently using a lamp with a UV light for heat set on a timer for light during the day and off at night. The temperature flunctuates between 78 and 82 degrees and humidity is around 70%.

I did not feed her right away as I wanted her to get used to the new environment and she spent the first couple days buried in the bedding. She had a good shed about 3 days after she was put in the tank and I waited to day 4 to try and feed a f/t fuzzy. She was not interested at all. Took it out and waited another 2 days and tried again and she is still not interested.

Today she started laying eggs on top of her stone hide....I believe there are 8 or 9 in there now. Is this the reason for her disinterest in food?

Is there anything special that I need to do for her? I've been reading on this forum about incubating eggs so I'm pretty confident I can do that. When should I offer her food again? I work in labor and delivery and I know our new moms love to eat after a baby Can you tell if an egg is a slug or a good egg? These are all bright white and oblong and look ok but I've never been in this situation before. Any advice you could all offer would be highly appreciated.

Thanks for your help..
Traci

First, congratulations! What state do you live in/where is the snake from? There are different subspecies all over the country, and prey is a little dependant on your locale. Like your moms, she would prefer multiple smaller meals rather than one bigger one, mice are the easiest thing to come by most likely. Your cage setup sounds fine, and she may go into a shed cycle pretty quick and wont eat during this time. If she doesnt eat anything within about 3 weeks its best to try and find out where she was found and return her there. Most wild caught adult milks are picky feeders, in my experience less than 50% will eat in captivity. But be prepared for your babies because they arent easy either, but chances are some should eat for you. They are alot of work to get started, and that more than anything is the reason they arent bred and kept in numbers. Good luck!

She was found in the woods in mid Michigan (Greenville), but I don't know anything else about the location. She was snatched up by some kids and thrown in a bucket to be given to me. So she has had a hard transition from wild to domestic life, being handled roughly and from there put into an improper habitat before being "rescued" by us.

Now that she has layed her 9 eggs and has gotten her energy back we decided to handle her for the first time while we did some cage maintenance. Surprisingly she was very gentle, just curious and checking my husband and I out. No biting, musking or pooping. It just seemed very out of charicter for a "wild" snake. Which leads us to believe that maybe she was a pet before and deserted by her owner. We will never know I suppose but would appreciate your responses to our post.

I did take the eggs and place them in a butter dish with air holes and placed them on a bed of damp moss and they are being kept at about 85 degrees. They all seem to be fertile eggs but I guess we will find out after a while...
Thanks for your advice,
Traci