Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I hadnt been on here for a while and came back to see a lot of Tx rat questions so I took a pic of one of my female WC from Brazos Co., Tx. She wasnt happy about the picture.

females never like their pictures taken, don't you know that!?!?!?!????

beautiful snake tho

Hi Travis - I was wondering when you were going to jump in and set us straight with all the Texas rat snake posts recently. She's a real pretty Texas rat snake. Texas rat snakes don't like their pics taken. They aren't comfortable for very long if you don't close the enclosure or pick them up. I still have a wild caught female that hasn't calmed down very much since I got her over a year ago. Of course, she came to me pretty beaten up. She was rescued from some farmers that were going to kill her for getting into the chicken coup. A guy emailed me and said he had a w/c Texas rat snake and would I like her. He ended up sending me 3 Texas rat snakes by the time he shipped. All female though. The other 2 have settled down as best as I can tell. The one female just isn't going to trust anyone. Like I mentioned she was pretty beaten up. I had to get about three layers of old sheds off her in a few places and remove 3 or 4 retained eye caps. She has some old scars, but not too bad. She cleaned up pretty good, but nothing like the female in the pic you posted. Here's one of the females from the 3 that were sent to me. She's from the Bryan, Texas area. I have a w/c trio from the College Station area. They have a dark gound color on them. I like them a lot.

Terry Parks

How do i remove the retained eye caps...my 5 ft texas rat has one and i dont know ho to remove it..please help me out. thanx.

I use a wet swab and rub the eye in a circular motion for 10 minutes or so to soften the retained eye cap. If it doesn't come off, I will try again in a couple days repeating the process. The eye cap should come off with rubbing in a few tries at most. If an edge of the eye cap is lose off the eye, some people will use a tweezer to grab the eye cap edge and flick the eye cap off. They will also look for an edge to lift up with the wet swab rubbing and then use the tweezers. I'm skidish with tweezers and the eye of a snake so I continue wet swab rubbing every 2 days for several times and the cap will generally come off. If there is only the one eye cap and it doesn't want to lift off, I would just wait until the next shed. Make sure you put something like moist moss or newspaper when the snake goes in blue eye so he can rub on it to help prepare for it to come off with this next shed.

Terry Parks

>>How do i remove the retained eye caps...my 5 ft texas rat has one and i dont know ho to remove it..please help me out. thanx.

>>I hadnt been on here for a while and came back to see a lot of Tx rat questions so I took a pic of one of my female WC from Brazos Co., Tx. She wasnt happy about the picture.
>>

Do all Tx rats tend to have that red underlay with the grey? Or is there some other definitive ways to tell them from Greys?
(hey, I am from NY and don't get out much)
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

I believe most, if not all, Tx rats will have some color at least between their scales ( excluding morphs). Grey rats have a vastly different look, at least IMO. They are usually grey white and brown colors.

hope that helps