Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just wanted to say howdy. I'm a new member of the forum. I have two cali's(one male 5', one female 2'), three horses, one mule, one goat, five dogs, two rabbits, two hedgehogs, two cockatiels, and a guinea pig. Oh yeah, a wife and two boys also.

You've come to a good place where the folks are all very opinionated.

I have 2.4 cal kings (plus 8 eggs hatching in the next ten to twenty days), 1.1 blotched kings (8 eggs due to hatch end of next month), 0.1 AZ mtn kings, 1.2 corns, 0.1 jungle carpet pythons, 0.1 tiger rats, 1.0 rosy boas, 0.0.7 sonoran ground snakes, 1.1 emerald swifts, 1.0 bahaman anoles, 1.2 step kids, 1.0 spouse, and WAY TOO MANY mice.
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WISH List
Some of the snakes I hope to get in the future:
1.0 AZ mtn kings (hopefully one will hatch for me this year)
1.0 Jungle Carpet Python ~ Next year maybe
1.0 CB Tiger Rat ~ Next year Maybe
0.1 Whitewater (not albino) Rosy boa. (Albino would be cool, but not necessary)
1.1 Andean Milks (for the classroom)
plus
rats, gerbils, and spiney mice.
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Again, welcome!

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~Sasheena
Ground Snakes
Kit, Kaboodle, Tantilla, Tantillas, Lightning, Kinkee, Maple
JCP
Dreamer
Rosy
Castle
Kings
Licorice, Bishop, Queenie, Jester, Tigris, Euphrates
Pandora, Phantom
Lady
Corns
Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes
Tiger
Amulet

Sash
What spp. of ground snakes are you keeping and what husbandry are you using?...(ie set up) substrate and food ? I have some shovelnose that eat crickets.

Thanks
Rainer

P.S.
BTW, welcome snyper438! Just don't listen to anyone on here and your snakes will live a long time..
Just kidding! But you will get some newbies here giving advice that sometimes is the wrong advice. Get aquainted with the members from archived posts and you will see who has been around the block.

>>Sash
>>What spp. of ground snakes are you keeping and what husbandry are you using?...(ie set up) substrate and food ? I have some shovelnose that eat crickets.

The ground snakes I keep are Sonora Semiannulata

The two youngest ones are '01 hatch, roughly 9 inches long, maybe shorter. I've had one since August '01, all the rest this year. The young ones are both currently more like Tantilla Hobartsmithi than Sonora Semiannulata. Black head greenish tan body, CREAM belly. The heads get lighter with each shed and each is starting to show a nice orange dorsal stripe. Two of my adults are the same phaze, with dusky heads and a bright orange stripe. Both of those were given to me by my students, one of which has two severe kinks about the perfect distance from each other to surmise it was shut in a door at some point in its life. Except for the most convoluted slither, it gets around fine. Another of the adults I have is pure red with a cream belly. All three of these adults are about 14 to 15 inches long. I also have two of the Sonora Semiannulata that are banded, red and black bands, one is a sub-adult, and the other is the largest one I have.

I have all 7 in a 15 gallon aquarium, dirt for a substrate, cork bark and several stones and logs for them to hide under. A couple of shallow water dishes. I feed them 30 or so small crickets once a week, and it's a feeding frenzy.

I don't give them any supplemental heat. The "mouse room" is a lot cooler than an Arizona summer, but still in the low 80's. In the winter I don't add heat either, and I offer a lot fewer crickets in the winter. When my "big snakes" brumate I tend to feed only lightly if at all. When the snakes come out of brumation, the ground snakes do too. I try to mimic the "natural" Arizona just a bit. Since I've had the one almost two years and he has thrived, I tend to think it's a good enough system.

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~Sasheena
Ground Snakes
Kit, Kaboodle, Tantilla, Tantillas, Lightning, Kinkee, Maple
JCP
Dreamer
Rosy
Castle
Kings
Licorice, Bishop, Queenie, Jester, Tigris, Euphrates
Pandora, Phantom
Lady
Corns
Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes
Tiger
Amulet

WOW! Very cool! I really like the ground snakes. I wish I could get out to AZ to find some but I know the laws protect them.
Would be nice if you could post some of the feeding frenzy on here someday. I for one would love to see more pics!

Hey, they don't have a forum here for them. Do they?

Anyway, thanks for sharing Sasheena!

Glad you liked the picture. That picture is Kinkee, the one with the two severe kinks in its spine. (broken probably). I'll post a couple of other pics. They are hard to photograph as they are very high strung. At the next "feeding frenzy" I'll have the camera out... they're so cool too, because they slither along the ground, the upper half to full inch of their length off the ground, looking like tiny little cobras, chasing the crickets until they nab them. The first time I had all seven of the snakes in the same container, they went berserk. The two banded new ones hadn't eaten in some time and they just went nutso! One nabbed the red ground snake, and wouldn't let go until I separated them, the other banded snake went to grab a cricket and got an old shed I hadn't removed, I had to pry it out of its mouth before it tried to swallow it. But mostly they just chase the crickets like mad.

>>WOW! Very cool! I really like the ground snakes. I wish I could get out to AZ to find some but I know the laws protect them.

Yes, the laws do protect them. Bag limit is 20 per day or in the aggregate. So technically, I guess, hubby and I could have 40 between us, or 100 if you count all the kids too. But seven is a good number.

>>Would be nice if you could post some of the feeding frenzy on here someday. I for one would love to see more pics!
>>
>>Hey, they don't have a forum here for them. Do they?

Nope, no forum, I have spoken on this forum about them and also on the field collecting forum. they are the only WC snakes I own. I have been lucky though, as the folks on this forum who don't care don't read, and don't complain. They're interesting little snakes!

-----
~Sasheena
Ground Snakes
Kit, Kaboodle, Tantilla, Tantillas, Lightning, Kinkee, Maple
JCP
Dreamer
Rosy
Castle
Kings
Licorice, Bishop, Queenie, Jester, Tigris, Euphrates
Pandora, Phantom
Lady
Corns
Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes
Tiger
Amulet

-----
~Sasheena
Ground Snakes
Kit, Kaboodle, Tantilla, Tantillas, Lightning, Kinkee, Maple
JCP
Dreamer
Rosy
Castle
Kings
Licorice, Bishop, Queenie, Jester, Tigris, Euphrates
Pandora, Phantom
Lady
Corns
Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes
Tiger
Amulet

-----
~Sasheena
Ground Snakes
Kit, Kaboodle, Tantilla, Tantillas, Lightning, Kinkee, Maple
JCP
Dreamer
Rosy
Castle
Kings
Licorice, Bishop, Queenie, Jester, Tigris, Euphrates
Pandora, Phantom
Lady
Corns
Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes
Tiger
Amulet

n/p

Thanks for the welcome note. Just added a 1.5year old banana king to the list of kids. She's a little small but she seems healthy.