Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone keeping these little gems? I think the care is pretty strait forward, I'm wondering about how polymorphic these guys actually are. Pics would be great.

Nate

I've never kept any personally, but those guys have a huge array of MIND-BLOWING phenotypes. Everything from plain uni-colored individuals to eye-popping super vivid pattern and color variation, and everything in between.
Do an "image" search on google, and you'll see what I mean. The variations will never cease!..LOL! I've always thought those guys are some of the most striking animals around!

good luck with them, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I'm wondering how easy they are to keep/breed as well.
I found my first one in June in my friend's backyard near Vegas (pic below).
As far as variability, the link below has photos of several different variations.

Tim

California Herps

Tim-

I don't know about breeding, but I have found them to be easy keepers, and ravenous feeders on crickets, waxworms and other soft-bodied insects. Since such small snakes would probably dehydrate easily, I've kept them in a small, planted semi-desert vivarium, where they have done fantastically well.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

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Brad I would love to see pics of your setups, the small planted desert viv's are one of my main interest in keeping these, not to mention the highly variable nature of them. I'm heading to Nogales next week, hopefully I can find a few.

Do you use any supplemental heating for them or are they in the snake room? I just got done building a 4 tall full size cambro rack in the intentions of finding a pair. I keep alot of big colubrids and am very interested in keeping a few small ones.

By the way any new info on those mexicanus?

Nate

Nate-

I would post pics, but I don't have any set up at the moment-I used the small exoterra "cube" style vivariums, and the compact fluorescent full-spectrum lighting provided both for the plants plus that little extra heat for these small nocturnal snakes. I also provided a very small heat pad against the back wall, but i do not know how often they used it (I would place small ledges made up of flat rocks in fromt of that section so they could utilize the heat and still remain hidden).

The mexicanus are finally both old and large enough that I am confident that we can successfully cycle them this winter-we'll be setting up a large outdoor screened enclosure in order to provide several hours weekly of artificial rain (here in south Texas you can't rely on the real thing!) towards springtime....
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

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Very cool thanks for the info. I'd kill for mexicanus.

Nate

Thanks-anyone who was present at last year's auction at Daytona knows we paid a terrible price, ourselves,,,,

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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

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I heard how much you paid and I think you got a pretty good deal. I've heard of some offers for privately owned mexicanus that would blow your mind.

Nate

Maybe so, but I can personally say that i don't know of another colubrid on this planet that I would have spent that much on. But for these guys it was worth it.

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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

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