Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello
Just saw a picture of these guys. Very awesome. I know nothing about them. What can anyone tell me .. size . temperment .. any special needs?

Picture of my new leucistic texas rat
Thanks in advance

Steve

In my experience Elaphe carinata are not a handleable species, they are shy and hide away alot, I rarely see mine, they have serious attitude will bite and musk readily.........and it stinks, well their not called stinking goddess for nothing eh? lol

They do like to burrow, temps wise 28°C/82°F to 22°C/72°F. They have a voracious appetite also. They reach an average of 160cm although can grow larger still.

Although saying that they are not the most friendly snake in the world maybe a bit unfair lol there is a member on here whos' azzies seem completely different temperament wise to mine.

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Thank you, I was just about to ask the same thing as Steve, as a King may be in my future.

I've been warned about their venom; how serious is it, in your experience?

Are they climbers? I give most of my new world rat snakes branches and hammocks, and they use the heck out of them.

As for burrowing, do you give them a thick substrate for this? I give my rubber boa a pretty deep pile of aspen for her burrowing pleasure (err, that sounded dirty, didn't it?), and she really seems to like that.

Finally, do you use very large enclosures? I like to give snakes plenty of room and furniture so I can watch them doing interesting things, but not all of them are comfortable with big spaces. Are these guys active enough to utilize the space?

Thanks

Sorry must have missed this.

Firstly their venom, I haven't noticed anything, well hubby is the one who gets bit and he's Ok lol....I think it's Ptyas carinatus to watch out for with the venom, not Elaphe. Check out http://www.venomdoc.com/ for more info, there is a section on Colubrid venom.

We do give them a thick substrate, we use aubiose, it's a horse bedding, much like aspen but not as expensive - they love it. A good 5-6cm.

As for space, mine are in a 4x2x2 (one each) vivarium, as I am a fan of providing space too. My male has become alot more active lately. I see him out exploring when I enter the room but he soon slithers away lol. Whether they need it or not, not sure. But atm they're doing fine, so that's what matters to me.

Climbing....again if the enclosure had the height where maybe you could add another platform, it may be used. But they are primarily terrestrial. Saying that even my fox snakes climb - so why not, can't hurt eh?

Again are they active....hmmmm you try and catch one out for cleaning lol. They are extremely quick when they want to be but they are incredably shy.

But this is only speaking from my experiance and I have heard of people calming them down, for that I would start with a hatchling.

Hope this helps.
venomdoc.com

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>>Again are they active....hmmmm you try and catch one out for cleaning lol. They are extremely quick when they want to be but they are incredably shy.

Haha, that conjures up some fun images! What do you stuff them in during the cleaning? I have a hard enough time bagging some of my friendly guys who are wiggly.

Well luckily we have an empty 4ft viv right next to them, so out of one and straight into the other lol

This is one of the reasons I love spare vivs!!!

We did have to bag them when we bought them, that was fun. And there was 3 of us then lol.

Not much help there.
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