I was looking through old pictures I have, thinking about losing these snakes hurts a good bit, lol. I don't think I ever posted about this project here. I think it was back in 2008, somebody from another forum (I don't know if he comes here) contacted me saying they found a striped ringneck snake. Ecstatic wouldn't even really describe how I felt at that time, lol, because that's unheard of as far as I know?



Anyways, a couple chats with this kind fellow and he was willing to send the snake my way for nothing. He told me he was going to gather up a couple females, since the striped was a male, then he'll be sending them on their way. Within a couple days he called me, telling me he found me more striped ringnecks, and another odd looking ringneck snake. So by now I'm ecstatic, multipled by 10, lol, and waiting is the hardest part.



Eventually the snakes arrived, I'm not even entirely sure what all I got from him, I think it was 3 striped ringnecks, all adult males, 1 baby hypo looking ringneck, and like 4 adult female ringnecks. I was having a major problem with escapes at that time using rubbermaid containers, so it seemed like the best bet to keep the snakes in those Critter Keeper plastic tanks. I kept the stripes in one tank, the females in another, and the little baby hypo was kept in a small plastic container with soil as the substrate(bad choice).



The hypo baby was the most aggressive-feeding baby ringneck snake I had ever kept in my life. By the time I fed it for the 4th time it seemed like it "knew" when I take the lid off that means foods coming. It would grab worms from my fingers. The snake ended up getting a couple blisters... how do you cure a baby ringneck of blisters?? you can't really. The snake would need to be dry for a while to be healed completely, and a small ringneck snake will dry up and die quicker than anything. Since it was so small I knew it was doomed.. :[



One of the striped ringnecks contributed to my thoughts of me having the worst luck ever when it managed to slip away during feeding time. To top it all off, a family emergency kept me away from home for a week that summer, and it managed to hit over 90 degrees that week. It wasn't 90 degrees when I left, so the a/c in the room I kept my snakes in was not on, which was not good news for the ringnecks...



I came home to 1 striped already dead and the other dehydrated, and the only 2 remaining females were severely dehydated as well. At this point water wasn't gonna help them, and even though I tried, the remaining 3 snakes were dead by the next day.



Here's a pic of the baby hypo-ish looking snake.





And here's a picture of one of the striped ringnecks.



Both pictures were taken by Dan Krull.



If only I could go back in time and try again!
-----
Mike

KingPin Reptiles

www.kingpinreptiles.com

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