Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering do southerns sell good and and also where can I get a pair, how much, and what is the attitude like?

Brandon

Check out the link in the post below by "tom", he is selling captive bred Southerns for a couple hundred dollars (or at least he was a few days ago).
http://mysite.verizon.net/res07xmo/

Southern hognoses have a limited range, and are in decline throughout. Tracy Tuberville at the Savanna River Ecology Lab published a paper on their decline in part by imported fire ants predating on their nests. Primarily, their decline is attributed to the decline of their favored habitat of mature pine and sand hills My personal opinion is that buying a wild caught southern would be promoting the collection of a species by people who are extremely ignorant of their population status.

In addition, I would also only recommend Southerns for experienced keepers. They are more obligate bufophagous (toad-eaters) than easterns. I am aware of one person who insisted on keeping a Southern that refused anything but spadefoot toads, which left me wondering what he would feed it in a drought year when spadefoot toads don't come out of the ground at all! I'd say once you have the experience of switching over a dozen or so Easterns to mice without reasonable mortality, could you move on to Southerns.

The discussions on this forum about Southern hognose is has been extremely limited, and I don't know what the consensus is of other hognose keepers. It would be great if some of the experience keepers of Southerns which chime in , it would be great if tom provided a word or two about his experience.

One of the few published papers on Southern hognoses is listed below, it takes you straight to the pdf paper
http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/tes/pdfs/serdp984.pdf
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Virginia Herping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS
Virginia Herpetological Society
http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/VHS

If there is a just God, how humanity would writhe in its attempt to justify its treatment of animals. - Isaac Asimov

I have purchased many southerns wc and cb. They have ranged in price from $50-$250 depending on sex, color, origin, etc. What Colchicine said about simus is ONLY true about wc's in that they are picky, but don't ever say they are harder than easterns because they are not. Easterns specialize in toads where as simus have a broader food intake. I have had fresh wc's take live brown domestic mice, thawed quail chicks, lizards, etc. Cb's are way easier though, and are about as hard as Westerns. Once you have them feeding and strong (bout 6 months worth of pinkies) they are good as gold and hard to kill. Also, they don't fast like nasicus...prolly one of the best kept secret snakes...

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Anthony Chodan

www.gradeareptiles.com

Thanks for the info Anthony, I will certainly take that into consideration the next time.
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Virginia Herping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS
Virginia Herpetological Society
http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/VHS

If there is a just God, how humanity would writhe in its attempt to justify its treatment of animals. - Isaac Asimov

Hey anytime...glad I could help!

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Anthony Chodan

www.gradeareptiles.com