Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm kind of curious on how often most rattlesnake keepers feed their charges. I'm of the opinion that once a month is enough regarding most N. American adult species. Any opinions?????

Here's what I did when I kept Canebrakes ...

Babies to Juveniles - One pinkie immediately after each poop, often ment one every five days.

Juveniles to Sub-adults - One mouse each week, assuming it has pooped.

Adults - One every two weeks, assuming it has pooped.

I never went in for stuffing a rattler just to make it grow faster. It's not healthy for humans and it's not healthy for snakes. I liked mine lean and active, and I found it best to wait until they had a bowel movement before feeding them again. I also fed live mostly, but I watched them carefully and I raised my own bug-free mice and rats. Never had a problem. Nowadays, I'll go with frozen 30 days and thawed because I can't raise my own mice and control their health.

Phil

Feeding schedules vary quite a bit from keeper to keeper.

I believe you have to offer a wide variety of temperature choices first and foremost. They should be available 24 hrs as long as there is a cool option. Then, you can feed according to what your snake tells you. I have worked with and bred rattlesnakes for over 20 years. In the wild they eat a lot more than we give them in captivity. With extreme exception they always tell you when they want eat (and I bet the exception is us not knowing what they are showing!). Watch their behavior and posturing carefully. Cycling / gravid females may eat every other day for several weeks. Horny males may not eat at all for a few months. Most gravid females will eat almost to giving birth but food item size must be decreased or they refuse. Which brings up, how big a meal should you regularly feed? We could go on for hours.

If you have proper temperature options every week is a good minimum... Interesting feeding based on turd behaivior!! I'll watch that...

"In the wild they eat a lot more than we give them in captivity."

I'm not sure I agree with you here, as you rarely see the kind of fattened-up wild rattler that you do in captivity. Wild rattlers, based on what I know, are usually slimmer and shorter for the same species and age as a captive due to food availability.

I dunno ...

True, wild rattlesnakes are generally more trim and slim.... However, palpate them and you'll see that there is food in them almost all of the time, at least seasonally. My thoughts are, and I don't claim any concrete truths here, is that in the wild, they are so much better at taking care of themselves than we ever could imagine to provide for in captivity. We can not possibly provide the same environmental variances that they use. I will say that given a wide range of heat / hiding options you can feed them a lot in captivity without them showing great girth and weight gains. I am involved in a monitored population of two species. We have studied these population for 14 years. At times, almost every individual has a food bolus, and the same individuals have food consecutively for weeks at a time. I doubt that they are digesting more slowly than captive ones. From that supposition, I believe that they are eating often. I feed my captive ones a lot at certain times. They produce young, lots of fecal material and are not even moderately obese. It all comes down to what they are doing during the different times of the year. When the wild ones are eating, which is most of the time between early spring and late fall (Arizona) I think they eat a lot.

I think that most of the very large captive rattlesnakes are due to not enough heat, not enough heat long enough during the day, or not enough "secure" heat such that they feel safe enough to use it long enough to metabolize their food completely. Most wild rattlesnakes that I have been able to learn their habits thermoregulate out of sight.

Anyway, those are some thoughts to ponder...

Could you elaborate a bit more about the heat thing, in relation to the weight of captive crotalus? That's very interesting, and you obviously know your stuff.

What do you think the optimum temp ranges are for captive crotalids (mollossus and viridis) for the ambient temp and 'basking spot' temp, day cycle and night cycle?

With Canebrakes, I generally kept temps as follows:

Day - basking = 85, ambient = 75
Night - basking and ambient = 75 (light off)

How would humidity affect digestion and utilization of prey, if at all?

Phil H.

My hot spots are in general: light bulb spots: 145 degrees in the center of the heated area, subsurface hot plates 105-110 degrees. I use layered planks, rocks or pieces of bark under the heat lights such that they have lots of choices about how hot to heat up. The subsurface hot plates have cover of some sort over them so they can use then without being out in the open. Gravid females will sit right in the hottest spot for quite a while, at least they keep their eggs there. They have cool alternate areas to go to ranging from 72 ish in the summer down to 40 in the winter. I leave the heat lights and plates on 24 hrs year round.

Humidity is critical for western species, at least hydration is an issue and they seem to spend time in the more humid areas of the cages. They are all about not drying up. I provide saturated moss in plastic boxes for them to go sit in. They love it, oops! or I guess I should just say they go in them often.