Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I caught what looks like a panamint rattler on Sunday. At first it was pissed off and lively, trying to kill anything that moved. Now it stays in its hide box, and is very hard to entice to move (I needed to ajust its box). It seems way too lethargic. Its cage has a warm side and a cooler side the middle stays at about 80-85 degrees, under tank heater and overhead full spectrum basking lamp on the same side of cage, slightly staggered for more even heat distribution. It has peices of wood to crawl around and currenly has a little field mous tankmate, until it decides to eat. Why is it so calm? It didn't rattle when I tried to move it, so I left it alone, here's a pic of the tank. 50 or 55 gallon.

I WOULDN'T recommend leaving the mouse in the same cage as the snake for any appreciable length of time. I've known keepers that have done this, and chances are the mouse gets hungry before the snake does and....well, you have one dead snake on your hands.

My recommendation to you is to remove the rodent from the cage and leave the snake alone for awhile. Remember, this is a fresh WC animal, and it might take him awhile to ajust to captive conditions. Don't worry about feeding him right now...from the pics you posted, the animal looks to be in good health, and as such can go quite a few months without a meal if need be. Right now, just give him time to adjust to his new home and disturb him as little as possible. Once he feels comfortable, he most likely will come around and act like a typical speck (although I hear panamints are somewhat less excitable than your average southwestern speck anyway).

Oh...and don't get tagged!

-AzAtrox

the screen top cage you are using

I'm not going to get on a soapbox about proper caging, but you should probably consider a more secure and safe home for you're little guy.

Aza gave you good info regarding your real question though.

I realize that the cage is unsafe, I'm currently gathering funds to build a bigger, better, safer enclosure. I am very cautious with this cage, I have weights on top to ensure it will stay down, and I rarely go near it unless I have to. Also, I NEVER alow other people to even enter my room right now, much less go near the tank. Thanks guys for the advice, I'll keep you posted on progress.

Luke

>>the screen top cage you are using

HAAAAA!!!! Too funny. I didnt even notice that when I looked. LOL!!!
Yeeeehh... you prolly wanna get a different top on that. I DO have a metal screen top on mine. It is a double metal screen top that is SLIDING and LOCKS. You really want something that cant be pushed up and that can have a lock on it. A small Pad lock.
Good eyes! lol
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Crazy ZooLady

Yeah, working on it. Where can I get one like yours? Also, got more really good pics up on the pic posting site (Home > Member Galleries > kungfuluke's Gallery)

Cheers,
Luke

>>Yeah, working on it. Where can I get one like yours?

I really dont know. lol I got mine here in Idaho at a big pet store we have here. They have those type of tanks with the sliding lockable metal tops in just about all sizes. They are great.
Check whatever your biggest pet store is in teh reptile section to see if they have any like it.
Petsmart maybe?
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Crazy ZooLady

In my experience with panamints and specks, they are generally pretty calm animals and don't rattle much or get too excited. One of my male panamints is probably one of the calmest snakes I have - venomous or not.

I would suggest making rock caves and crevices to make it feel comfortable and to give it some time to adjust and calm down before offerring it any food. Are you measuring the temperature from the air? With an undertank heat pad and sand as a substrate, it might be too hot for the snake sitting on that sand. I would probably just go with an overhead basking light. Here's my idealistic setup that I had mine in for a while. Since moving, they have moved into different cages.

Also, I have a caresheet I wrote for these guys on my website if you want to read it. Good luck! Panamints are sweet snakes!

Ok, prizmreptile, What's the url of that caresheet? and I did redo the tank, and I fed it two wc pinkies from a desert rat nest i stumbled across, pretty big pinkies, but because of their lack of hair, they went down easily, had a third pinkie, gave it to my Rosy boa that just got done shedding, scarfed it down quick, along with a wc field mouse, it was hungry I guess

New tank