Recently my step father caught, what I'm guessing is, a western yellow-bellied racer. He sprays pest control, and rescued it from a customer's garage. So he brought it home for me to care for.

I'm new to the world of reptiles, and have been directed to this site by a friend that owns a few and is helping me out. She helped me confirm its species, and is helping me with care tips and such.

I've been doing a bit of research for a couple of days and have come across multiple conflicting descriptions about their natural habitat(specifically for the western yellow belly racer). Most say dry and hot, and a few have said humid and hot, some have even said slightly aquatic. Personally I'd love to create a terrarium with a small "pond" for feeder fish. But from what I've gathered most snakes need to live in a mostly dry and temperature controlled environment.

The snake is ~15" long, and brown/grey in color with black~ish spots and a off white yellow~ish underbelly with green~ish transition stripes.

I have a small 10 gal aquarium tank, with a generic heat lamp, and some hide spots. I haven't put down any type of substrate yet, but I've read that racers like to burrow/hide.

Since this is a wild(ish) caught reptile, my friend told me to get some MiteOff and use that for ~2 weeks. Cleaning the tank daily, before I put down a substrate. I still have some reading to do on non-toxic ways to clean the snake tank(I may be over thinking that bit, but not sure).

After doing some reading in this forum, I'll have to find out and learn how to "tease feed", and get some long forceps. My friend told me that frozen food is going to be healthier than live, due to parasites. But due to the temperament of racers, I'm assuming that I'll need to at least start out with live food(while learning and trying out tease feeding).

I'll post more later, after the trip to PetCo, once I get off work.

Any help/corrections would be helpful and much appreciated.

Thanks...

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