Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Eh... smooth scaled, keeled scaled.... preferences.

My regal ringneck snake, 19" female, is starting to bother me w/ feeding habits. See, she will only eat either live keeled scaled snakes, or f/t smooth scaled snakes. She wouldn't take a live night snake, even AFTER the night snake shed in her enclosure and left pheromones everywhere. Last night I gave her an adult northern brown snake, it was pretty big, largest prey she ever tried taking down, and it would've made me feel better if she would've eaten it, as it would've put some weight on her. BUT.... she bit it once she saw it, on the head, hung on for about 30 seconds, the brown snake broke free. The snake stayed away from her for about 5 minutes, came back around her way, she grabbed it again, on the head. Unlike her usual live feeding routines, she started swallowing the snake, BEFORE it was dead. The brown stopped moving for a while and I actually thought she killed it. The regal got it about 1/4 of the way down, when the brown kicked back to life, and struggled. When she is eating the larger prey, I usually hold the prey's lower body while the regal consumes it, so it can't fight back as good, and I really wish I would've done that here. The brown fought away, died a couple minutes later. The regal was scoping it out for a little while after that, never tried to eat it though, and it was still there this morning.

Dan, Oxy(something lol) on these forums got a regal from the same place, which they both came from the same area. Dan's will take the f/t garters, waters, browns, whatever that he offers. I'm running out of smooth scaled snakes, I've got a couple baby eastern kings, some rat snakes, blind snakes and some others in the freezer, but all in all I am low. She already refused a scarlet king, my guess is because it resembles a coral snake. After that she went into shed, so she hasn't eaten in 2 weeks. It's not worth it to starve her, she already gets skinny from not eating, and besides that I think she may be gravid.

I don't know why I spent 15 minutes typing this message lol, just sharing my experiences/thoughts with all of you who care to read. Tonight, about half an hour from now, I'll be trying a 10" Pine woods snake as a meal tonight to try and get her back on her Wednesday night = meal night schedule.

Mike

Michael's Place

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Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

That is odd. Take a defrosted snake and skin it and put the regal in a container with a paper towel and see if it eats the skinned snake. Just make a slice behind the neck and tear it down the back and the skin will come off. If all else fails, send the regal to me. I will have it eating a rubber duck in a week (scented of course).

Dan

lol.

She refused 2 f/t snakes last night, a 15.5" texas rat snake and a 10.5" pine woods snake. They were placed in different ends of the enclosure so she would have to see atleast one of them. She just went under the aspen and stayed there all night.

I'll be trying a small 7" or so brown snake on her soon. I figure she'll probably attack it because it's small prey. We'll see.

She looks a very nice green color after her most recent shed. Pretty awesome.

Mike
Michael's Place

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Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

My 22" Regal continues to thrive on brown anoles.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

....mebbe you got it right Mike...If shes gravid....she wont eat.
I recommend you throttle back, dont bug her & offer an appropriate prey item 1: 7-10 days, she'll eat & live or die.
Holding sdown the prey isnt the answer, nor do I suggest skinning it, tho a good rinse of f/t garters & rubbing skink or ratsnake scent on its head isnt a bad idea.
Good to see rearfangs still out there...