Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I found a green grass snake and a red belly baby under a rock outside my friend's house ( in N. Wisconsin). Anyone know where I can find good care sheets on these?

I've been watching, hoping someone would reply to this post. I am getting some Captive Hatched Smooth Green Snakes soon and have not been able to find any info on keeping them in captivity, only info about them in the wild. They are eating crickets. I don't know if you can house more than one together, or what is the proper temp to keep them at. Or humidity. Not sure if they will eat anything other than Crickets either. Please let me know if you were able to find a care sheet. Thanks!
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Lyns Lair
Frogwatch USA
WNY Herpetological Society

0.1 Cat (Mia)
4.2 Ferrets (Wolf, Shadow, Verdell, Sullivan, Boo, Peach)
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Luckily HerperHelmz has a smooth green snake care sheet on his web site, please click the following link and enjoy the article.

http://www.freewebs.com/mikesnake/queensnakes.htm

yes, someone emailed me a caresheet on the smooth green (thanks vincent!) email me if you would like me to send it to you! polarpooch@charter.net

--Vicki

I have kept quite a few greens. what I've read on the smooth greens is that they will eat worms and grasshoppers. you might be able to switch it to pinkies. I am not sure about that..and as for keeping them together, I am unsure of that also. I wish you luck on this!!
cali
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Cali
"Beauty is in the eye, but if the eye is ugly, it can see no beauty."
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Just FYI, red bellies are notorious as VERY timid snakes. On the plus side, they are pretty easy to house. Feeding is the biggest problem to overcome.

I have a WC one myself.

You'll need a 10 gallon tank for 2 or 3 red bellies. You should place it in a very quiet area.

Substrate, I just use paper towels. On one side of the tank I have a bunch of towels crumpled up to act as a hide. Of course, give a standard water bowl (not too deep). I'd also suggest coconut (bed a beast, etc).

I always try to give any snake a large number of hides to choose from. A humid hide is easily made by cutting a small hole in the side of a store bought "tupperware" type container (with lid) that you'd buy butter or margerine in. Just add some moist paper towels and you're golden.

Since the snake is so common in the north, and its mainly nocturnal, you don't need much for extra heat. I suggest a very low watt heat bulb during the day to keep one side at about 80 F, but they will do ok even without.

Feeding is the tricky bit. Red bellies love slugs. LOVE em. Some will ONLY eat slugs. I'm lucky that mine will also eat trout worms which you can buy at walmart or whatever. A container of 2 dozen will last a long time in the refridgerator. Now please note, slugs are obviously hard to come by, but should still be fed if at all possible. Feeding slugs is a real pain simply because they STICK to EVERYTHING. If you are using a paper towel substrate, they will stick to it and the snake will never be able to eat them. Use wax paper when feeding. Same thing with worms...stuff sticks to them and they dry out easy. What I made to fix this is a modified humid hide. Instead of a hole on the side, put it on the top, in the middle. Mist the butter tub to keep it moist at all times and put the worms and slugs in there. This way the snake can enter the tub to eat and the prey items are less likely to get out and roam the cage. Leave the feeding tub in for several days (overnight).

If the snake isnt eating, you really gotta let it go. Like I said, feeding is the biggest problem. Some won't eat simply because they are so timid, and too many things scare them during the day...

Good luck.

I loved the care info you just gave on red bellied snakes. I am thinking of either them or ringnecks(not regal) after reading it decided to look into ringnecks because the sticky slug thing might be a pain plus they sound way more secretive than ringnecks.
Thanks.
Lia

Well they are secretive to a point. I still see mine during the day every now and then, but as soon as I get near, he'll go into hiding pretty quick.

Oh and I actually found a (sort of) care sheet the other day. Pretty much the same stuff I said. It's the only one that I've ever found:

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/canopy/6401/snake.html

I've never dealt with red bellies, but they sound similar to my sharp-tailed snake. My sharp-tail is also very secretive and feeds exclusively on slugs (I've tried various grubs, insects, small snails and worms). I've had it for almost 3 months now, it has shed twice and grown a lot.

I've got it in a 2.5 gallon aquarium (it's a very small snake) with 2 inches of bed-a-beast on the bottom, a small water bowl, and a slab of bark that covers about 2/3rds of the aquarium. Once a week I go out with a flash-light and gather 15 - 20 slugs from my yard (I find them feeding on the dandilions that grow in the moist areas of our lawn). I keep the area under the bark moist and put a leaf of romain lettuce or other greens under the bark with the slugs. The slugs hang out under there on the lettuce and so does the snake. I often find him curled up in the lettuce leaf. This set-up seems to prevent any sticky slug issues and has been very easy to maintain. Keeping the area under the log moist through periodic spraying also keeps the entire lower layer moist enabling the snake to construct a network of tunnels. I've been changing the bed-a-beast monthly. My snake seems to only poop on top of his bark slab, so cleaning is fairly simple. I have yet to see him above ground, and the poop on the bark slab and his occaisional shed hooked on the bark's rough surface are the only evidence that the snake is in there. If I didn't have to go out and catch him slugs, he'd easily be my lowest maintenance animal.

-Alice

Sounds great. I really like the lettuce idea. I'll try that.

One thing about red bellies however is they should be kept in a drier environment, not moist all the time....

If you tried the same set-up in a larger tank, like a 10 gallon, you'd probably be fine because the majority of the tank would be quite dry and the moisture would be restricted to the area under the piece of bark and in the immediate vicinity.
-Alice