Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My baby racer wouldnt eat so I had to force feed. I have had her a month. I took a bussiness card and opened her mouth then I took a pinkie leg and placed it at the back of her throat. She proceded to swallow it fine. My tip is ALWAYS FEED SMALLER FOOD ITEMS WHEN FORCE FEEDING.
Hope it helps
David
P.S. i am sooo relieved my racer ate
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1.0.0 Taiwan Beauty Snake
2.1.0 Black Rat Snake
1.1.0 Corn Snake
1.0.0 Common Garter Snake
0.1.0 Northern Water Snake
0.1.0 Black Racer
0.1.0 Black Widow
0.1.0 Wolf Spider

Try lizards instead of mice the racers and coachwhips seem to be terrified of mice till their 3 feet or so and their also not ready for all that fat, lizards are a very lean meat, I had a two clutches of 18 eastern coachwhip eggs hatch and all the eastern babies that I fed a pinkey to tossed and all the babies that I forced lizards gerw fast and never tossed up food. JB

>>Try lizards instead of mice the racers and coachwhips seem to be terrified of mice till their 3 feet or so and their also not ready for all that fat, lizards are a very lean meat, I had a two clutches of 18 eastern coachwhip eggs hatch and all the eastern babies that I fed a pinkey to tossed and all the babies that I forced lizards gerw fast and never tossed up food. JB
>>

mine dosent toss
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1.0.0 Taiwan Beauty Snake
2.1.0 Black Rat Snake
1.1.0 Corn Snake
1.0.0 Common Garter Snake
0.1.0 Northern Water Snake
0.1.0 Black Racer
0.1.0 Black Widow
0.1.0 Wolf Spider

there's still time. I would not be messing with it till it passes several stools.
Nate

>>there's still time. I would not be messing with it till it passes several stools.
>>Nate

well nows he is tease fed on snake scented snake tails
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1.0.0 Taiwan Beauty Snake
2.1.0 Black Rat Snake
1.1.0 Corn Snake
1.0.0 Common Garter Snake
0.1.0 Northern Water Snake
0.1.0 Black Racer
0.1.0 Black Widow
0.1.0 Wolf Spider

One major thing to consider when feeding animals that have gone without for an extended period of time is regurge. Its great that you've got your racer to eat but give him time to process his meal. If he's halfway through digesting one meal and then has to start digesting another you set yourself up for a regurge. Once a snake pukes you have alot of other worries ie dehydration, digestive fluids harming on the way out ect.

After feeding it the first time wait till you find stools from that meal give it 2 more days and repeat. On most of my high metabolism snakes I feed every 2 days after poo until they reach around half grown then I go to 3 days after defacation.

Just an FYI I've been keeping and breeding snakes for the better part of 15 years and I've yet to own Coluber or Masticophis because of the care requirements. Just now I'm to the point where I think I could keep them succesfully. But I have other snakes to worry about at the moment lol.

Nate

If you need any more advice shoot me a PM. And if anybody feels like correcting me please do as I would love to hear other ideas on this matter.

The biggest thing I've found with raising racers successfully is to leave them alone. They're very skittish, and most of the time they won't eat if someone is watching them, or even if someone is in the same room with them. I've raised multiple groups of hatchling racers on crickets and day old pinks. Most took to feeding right off the bat just as long as I left them alone.

Coachwhips are a completely different ballgame. What will work for one won't work for another. Because of their slender body type, the hatchlings in particular need small food items or they'll regurge every time. Also, some are local specific as far as what kind of lizards they want. Adults are fairly straightforward (i.e. if it moves, they'll eat it).

Kevin

From what it sounds like racers are pretty easy to get going, I've heard this from a few others as well. Neonates are kept in shoeboxes and left alone, crickets/grasshoppers are food.

Are they visualy oriented specificaly or will they take FT rodents?

I would think a basking spot of 90 with an ambient of 75/80 and a cool of around 70?

What sub-species of Coluber have you worked with?

I have always wanted to play around with some of my local Coluber constrictor mormon, they're such cool snakes. I think I may just be stuck on the general stigma that they're really dificult snakes and should just give it a go.

On to Masticophis, I hear they're the worst as juvies/neonates and theres not many out there as hard to get started. What I'm taking from you is you have to live where you have access to many diferent species of thier native lizards?

Do you find they prefer Scelops, Eumeces, Anolis, what else?

I would also love to work with some nice Eastern Coaches someday.

Any info is very appreciated.
Nate

Nate,
I'll start by saying 90% of my knowledge on coachwhips has came from Sighthunter. He lives close to me, and once I got started wanting to work with coachwhips, he kind of coached me through a lot of it (no pun intended.)

When it comes to racers, they definitely key in on movement. I've never had a juvie take anything that was dead, although I've heard of adults taking frozen/thawed. I have a coachwhip right now that will take frozen mice right out of my hands. The biggest thing with them is to give them a big hide and leave them alone. With adult racers, you can handle them some, I've had a few that were downright affectionate, but with the juvies, let them be. They stress easily, and won't eat if you're hounding them all the time.

Everything that I've said for racers can be said for coachwhips, although with coachwhip hatchlings there is no set "pattern." (According to Sighthunter.) Some like crickets, some don't. Some will take hatchling lizards, others won't. Some want frogs. They'll eat each other.

The adults are a complete 180, most of them will eat anything you throw in front of them. In my experience, piceus seem to be more fragile than testaceus, piceus are prone to regurge, whereas testaceus can eat amazingly large food items. Easterns I've never worked with, but I'm getting there. With easterns, I'm picky, I don't like florida easterns, for the most part. I prefer the all black phase with the reddish tail, mostly found in Missouri and Arkansas. Don't get me wrong, Florida has some fine looking animals, just not my favorite, and they're usually the easterns that are offered.

Kevin

Thanks for the info Kevin.

You reiterated what I was thinking about racers, I think I'll just have to go grab a couple nice ones and give it a go. I wouldn't mind toying around with them for awhile, WTH right?

The coachwhips are killing me. Piceus are rad and some of the darker ones are spectacular animals but I've heard the same thing about them. Higher temps and way more sketchy. The only testaceus I really like are the reds like Bills (wheres he been anyway, I hear he has some cool stuff right now)and its hard to settle for anything less after you've seen those snakes.

My favorite whips are the dark forebody and so light its almost white aft. I hear they can be found most anywhere but South Carolina and Arkansas have the ones I realy like. You, or anyone you know have any good looking snakes hatching right now?

Nate

I have a cingulum (sonoran coachwhip) right now that's an absolutely awesome animal, every bit of six feet, and red and tan banded. Also completely friendly, not nervous in the least. Acts more like a big indigo than a coachwhip. Nothing hatching out this year though.

Kevin

We/I need some pics of some of you Coachs!

I have local customers who catch coachwhips and many want to try their hand at keeping them. Yeah, usually babies! Big ones bite and don't make it to the store. LOL

I have found over time that if you set them up like a diurnal basking lizard they will feed readily on mice.

The setup for a hatchling is:

10 or 20 gallon screen topped reptile tank
50 watt Zoomed Basking Spot (hot spot of 110F)
24" Zoomed 10.0 UVB lamp
wooden branch for hiding and basking under the lights.
water bowl

These snakes are diurnal basking reptiles just like desert iguanas or spiny's that are found in the same habitat. So I decided to try it that way and it worked. Thus far I have a run of 8 or 9 in a row eating mice. In a year they are 3 feet or so and TAME!

They have a high metabolism so they need to be fed until full three times a week. That could mean 3 or even 9 pinks a week depending upon size.

I hope this helps.

If you try this, please take the time to make comment here.
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