Reptile & Amphibian Forums

O.k. Guys I am now the proud keeper of 3 baby coachwhips thanks to Mike...as you may have read from earlier posts.
My 'plan of attack' is to keep them going now through our British winter using the UV tube,plus heat and to offer pinkies twice a week.
Also I see now,first hand ,how tricky they are to get feeding
*pulls hair out*...All 3 refused tease feeding,so I VERY gently
opened their mouths with my smallest wire-probe and popped a pinkie in ...all 3 then carried on to swallow the pinkie on their own.

Those with experiance (Bill,William,Kev,Roy etc.) please comment and advise on my methods.

I can't tell you all how thrilled I am to get some babies over here.....I REALLY WANT TO GET THEM INTO ADULTHOOD!!

Best wishes Paul

If they are eating it is generally a good sign.
Allow them to have a good thermal gradient, as they are prone to overheating and dehydrating in my experience.
Any questions, feel free to fire away. Though I'm not as experienced as some of the others here, I have kept a few Masticophis and I would love to provide information to the best of my knowledge.
-----
Roy Blodgett
Green Man Herpetoculture
royreptile@yahoo.com

1.1 Drymarchon corais
1.1 Pseustes sulphureus
1.1 Masticophis taeniatus taeniatus
0.0.1 Coluber mormon
1.1 Lampropeltis getula californiae (desert phase)
1.0 Boiga dendrophila dendrophila
2.3 Pogona vitticeps (snow and red/gold)
1.0 Iguana iguana

“All men lie enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.”- Herman Melville

My hunch is that they have a dual life stage (a different animal when young) The only prey taken by some voluntarily has been cricket frog and hatchling skink. They will eat each other so small snakes might work.

They key on movement first and foremost. Food offered too often will only be a cage mate. I find high heat will get um going too around 90F

I used a new approach on my Ptyas which I think will work on Coachwhip. Since they like frog I started scenting frog with pink mice. I fed them every two or three days whenever they passed a meal. I did this for two months and then quit feeding them for ten days. I then offered frog scented pink mice every 10 days. It took one month for 8 out of 20 to feed on pink mice.

I have been hatching coach whip for 11 or so years and all I can say is good luck as they are an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being most difficult snake to start feeding!
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Thanks guys!!..yes I think experimentation will be the key,just need to give them a good start in life as they settle in.
They all ate again today using the same method.I find that they will get the pinkie down alittle faster if you gently move the pinkie with the end of a probe or something while its in the mouth.This simulates the preys struggle and seems to stimulate the baby snake in getting it down.

Hi Paul!

So exciting to read about Europe-resident coachwhips!
Such a fascinating snake, kinda more handsome version of the Montpellier snake, but on the other hand much trickier!
My pair of yearlings are currently brumating in my cellar (some 12 °C, I'm not very comfortable with Mr. Fahrenheit).
I hate to have to say something against Sighthunter's statements, but my specimens (Texas captive-born westerns) indeed discontinued feeding after a good start elicited by a rather long time (including first winter rest!) of assistance.

Wish you all the best for 2008!

Benjamin

Hi Benjamin
Next week I will collect a young (but much larger) 'Eastern'
and a similar sized 'red'...this will give me a total of 7 coachwhips!!..plus a large female western on loan from Mike.
I'm gonna try her with my large male next spring ..all being well!!
Paul

snakes. Most plastic is UV opaque. I have kept coachwhips and racers many times and had good results using a full-spectrum daylight bulb with a color rendering index of 98 (Lumichrome brand) in combination with a UV bulb--these days I like the Reptisun 10.0 UVB bulbs. I set hatchlings up in all-glass aquaria with screen covers, cypress mulch bedding and a cupped piece of bark for a hide spot. At one end of the cage an incandescent bulb in a reflector creates a hot spot of about 105 degrees F. Racers have the highest voluntary thermal preference of any North American snake, deliberately seeking out basking places in the upper 90s and low 100s F.

I did keep one tiny racer in a Sterilte plastic tub and I do think those containers have potential. I think the snakes benefit from having translucent rather than transparent walls, which contributes to a feeling of security for the inmates. When I used a plastic tub for my racer I cut a large opening in the lid and covered it with steel window screen which was hot-glued into place. This allowed full-spectrum light to shine into the cage. A warm basking spot was provided with subsurface heat.

It's good that your babies have swallowed voluntarily. I just finished conditioning some Black Racer hatchlings for an associate, and while some accepted mice soon after hatching, most insisted on frogs, baby snakes or lizards, and some refused all food voluntarily, necessitating forced feeding of such slender items as mouse tails, for months. Not surprisingly, these individuals did not grow much until at last they started accepting food voluntarily. Before feeding voluntarily, most of the non-feeders learned to strike at food while being held. If they got a good grip, they could be placed gently back in their cage or into a temporary container, and usually swallowed voluntarily. Interestingly, once they "discovered" eating, they seemed not to get enough, and after vexing me for months, turned into my best captives, taking defrosted mice every few days until they gained enough weight to slow down a bit. My thought on conditioning baby racers and coachwhips is to keep food in them by hook or crook until they at last eat on their own. Out of 11 baby racers, only two died of total refusal to feed--the rest are beasts that eat everything in sight.

Thanks 53K...that was a good in-depth answer,I've taken several points from it
Yes,you could be right about the opaque plastic tub lid,I might do something similar and put a clear perspex window in the lid..hopefully letting them have full benefit from the UV.

Kind regards Paul

This photo shows my baby 'red' feeding,I'm using the probe to simulate the prey struggling.It seems to be just the stimulus needed to encourage full swallowing.
Hopefully, as you mentioned the snake will eventually grab the pinkie herself.In the meantime I think it important to 'kickstart' the digestion process on one so small....thanks again for your helpfull comments.

I think Coachwhips are the coolest little secret in the reptile world. Alot of people do not know anything about them, but when they come over to my house, the coachwhips seem to get alot of attention. It takes a special type of person to keep them. My baby is set up in a 20 gallon aquarium & The light on the cage comes on @ 8am every morning & the little coachwhip comes out like clockwork to absorb the heat.

Glad you are happy with them so far Paul.

How have you found the eastern for feeding, one of the two we had would eat when it was placed in the mouth.... I think judging by today you took that one. LOL

Did the others today, two of the reds took and the other wouldn't take but ate once it was in the mouth. The eastern refused as normal but as you know they get one put down them anyway.

Both red adults took food again so that one should be fine, the eastern you are taking refused but may have eaten by tomorrow.

Thanks for all the advice from everyone else, I love to hear more infomation about these fantastic snakes.

Mike

P.S. Get more pics up everyone.

Hi Mike..been a great first week even though they are only assist feeding I'm feeling far more confident that they will take/grab eventually after talking with FRIENDS on this forum.
The baby Eastern seems a fair bit larger than the 2 reds so I think he's eaten quite well before I got him, even if he is not grabbing now.
Glad to hear my larger red is feeding,fingers crossed on the Eastern although it may be winter kicking in...who knows!!
Hey!!! but we've got red coachwhips ....yeeehhhhaaa!!

see you in a week,merry christmas Paul

He's great Jerry!..lovely little guy!..is he still eating like crazy,as in your last posts??...are you planning to keep him going through the winter??.As Benjiman mentioned early feeding
responses can slow down and stop(I hope not with yours).
As a few of us have babies of a similar age t'will be good to 'compare notes'.

I'm really glad coachwhips are not too popular within the hobby!!...for many reasons.

Best wishes & merry christmas Paul

Yes I am keeping it going through winter. I rarly ever burmate my snakes the first year. He still is eating out of my hand without a problem. No forcing @ all, just tease it til it takes a bite, then it is just holding still til it finishes the meal.

Merry Christmas Everyone!
Jerry

Seems baby coachwhips/racers fair better with an arrangement (small tank) with a small heat lamp over a rock to bask. Babies usually don't know how to use a heat pad/tape but will bask under lamp for hours and this significant increase in body temp is critical for their proper digestion (and they seem to know that). Without it, a meal potentially can go bad in their stomaches (rot essentially) and the snake will last only a couple week or month etc. Try mashing a cricket or grasshopper and scenting the goo onto a live pink and leave it just outside the snakes hidebox (essential also) or get a good group of feeder green tree frogs and dump several in at a time and they numerous bouncings of the food usually turns a switch on inside them and they go for frogs. Also, scenting with a garter or rat snake works as baby coachwhips like snakes and small anoles. Babies are very intelligent and if they do not have conditions to digest meals (heat lamp), they usually will not eat well.

Dan

Maybe it's just me, but I've always found racers very easy to keep. I've gotten several babies started feeding before on a steady diet of crickets and small pinkies. I've also had several adults that were downright pigs. The trick with the babies is to put them in a room where they aren't exposed to a lot of activity, give them a huge hide, or several, and then toss the food into the hide when they're hidden in it. Then leave the room. I've had several that wouldn't even eat if I was in the house, but if I'd leave and come back a few hours, or a day later, they would be fat, and the mouse would be missing. Racers are very intelligent snakes, and I think they can sense when they're being watched. They don't like it.

As for my coachwhips (two red westerns and one sonoran), they don't ever turn down a meal unless they're in shed. The two piceus seem to prefer pinkies over anything, they'll down a dozen between the two of them in one feeding. My big sonoran female will take two or three mice in a feeding, and be ready to go again in a couple of days. Amazing the metabolism these things have.

Let me also say for the record that I think it's astonishing that the vast majority of the reptile keeping community have turned their noses up at these snakes forever, deeming them impossible to keep, bad tempered, downright bad captives. All of my coachwhips have proven to be very tough captives, the same can be said for the racers I've kept. They require patience and a unique spin on snakekeeping, but they are, without a doubt, the most rewarding, responsive snakes I've ever kept. If the rest of the reptile community would open their eyes and give these snakes the attention they deserve, these things could be the next kingsnake. Then again, they'd probably lose some of their appeal if they became downright "domesticated" (translation: boring.) I think that's their magic, honestly. I've never seen a snake look at me the way a coachwhip does.

Kevin

Kevin

Thought your wife looked at you like that?
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Dan...You have a good point there and after reading Jerry's post as well I'm gonna try and rig-up some little heat-lamps and create that hot spot.I'm finding faeces in the cages so I can only assume the food is going through O.K.!!
unfortunately here in the U.K. we don't really have access to frogs as food...Only really have one species (rana rana) of frog and they are protected,but I did give my racer a road killed one last summer which he relished!!
I'll try the scenting theory....regards Paul

HAH, Bill, friggin' HAH.

Kevin

Thought the post said something different. I was not insinuating what you thought, I apologise.
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."