Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What temperature range and humidity level are you guys keeping your set ups at for your eyelash vipers. Mine doesn't seem to like the temp much above 80 degrees and humidity between 60 - 70 %. I had problems getting her to feed for the first 4 months I had her and she has eaten a few times since then but started refusing her last 2 or 3 meals again. I try feeding her every 14 days or so. She is a cb 01 animal so when I got her she was a well established animal. She won't strike at her food either and I have tried different things from small mice to rat pups, different temps and humidity levels and live, p/k and f/t. I finally got her to take p/k when she did eat for me. Any suggestions would be appreciated. This is the most difficult snake I have ever owned when it comes to feeding in 10 years of keeping hots and 18 years of keeping snakes.

Thank you,
Jason

Hi Jason, your caging requirements seem ok. May sure it stays well hydrated by misting her frequently. I actually drip water off the sprayer nozzel on to there heads. I think all eyelashes are prone to occassionally go off feed for a while. The key is to keep trying. Hopefully it will start feeding on its own..but I still have to do a bit of teeze feeding. The key here is to get them to strike the prey item and then you immediately freeze until the prey item is completely eaten. Time consuming but often effective. Good luck!

Thanks Bob for the reply. As for tease feeding like I said I have tried just about everything. I give her a light tap on the side with the rodent at different places, wiggle it in front of her and she just bobs her head at it or shy's away from it from going in the opposite direction of it to burying her head under the rest of her body. The few times she did eat I just showed it to her a few times and wiggled it in front of her a little then left it in the bottom of the terrarium. The next day it was gone. The only thing I haven't tried was night feeding with it really dark in the room which I won't do because of safety. I have a animal plastics a10 arboreal cage on order for her as we speak ( so to say ) because these exo terra terrariums don't hold humidity well. I know the AP cage will and hopefully with it being mostly closed off that she can't see out of she will feel more secure and happy in it. The only thing I am lacking for her is plastic plants inside which I know could make a big difference so when I get the new cage I plan on giving her a more natural environment. As for drinking she drinks well on her own. I find her perched on her water bowl often. Even my Rhinos and Gaboons drink on their own when they want to, and those were the first 2 species of hots I have ever kept and mostly kept. Some people I know say Rhinos can be tough to keep and they have had no luck with them but I only had one die so far on me in the past 10 years, and that one was roasted in its cage while I was away for 4 days and someone turned off my air conditioning. If there is any other tricks you can think of please let me know, I would like to breed her in the next upcoming season if I can find another nice golden or Christmas tree eyelash. Do you have any breeding info on them by any chance ? I looked a little on the net and couldn't really find much.

Thanks again,
Jason

Hi
I'm not sure does this help you anyhow but heres my story..

I try to breed my schlegeliis for the first time last spring..
First I dropped day time temperatures and humidity and about two months later I raised the temperatures and humidity back to normal (22-26'c, about70%) and put the male in females terrarium.. but nothing happened, the male was trying everything but the female refused.
Then I raised the temperatures more (28-29'c), still nothing happened.
After I raised the temperature to 30+ 'c the female accepted the males attempts and the male get lucky..
Copulation lasted over 3 hours and now the female is fat as a pig.

The copulation was withnessed in 9.4. and female stop eating about 1½ month ago. So hopefully I see some baby eyelashes soon.

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Thanks for the reply.