appreciate the advice because i know where it comes from. however, fear not >LOL< we keep reptiles they same way we do marine animals. with lots of care and knowledge.
we’ve been reading about iggys for well over a year(hatifields ultimate owners manual) and are getting more and more prepared every day. the iguana is going to reside in a walk in closet thats recently been turned into a iguana house. roughly, i would say its about 8’ X 4’ X 10’. i took the doors off and will build a screen door. the floor is tiled and i will recess mecury vapor bulbs in hot hats in the attic so there is no accidental contact. not to mention that the closet is in the newly built, fully enclosed, tiled floor “reptile room” where he can roam freely when we are home. ive put a deep sink in the room and a refrigerator which makes taking care of the herps SOO much easier. im well aware of all of the pitfalls of keeping an iggy and i belive im more than prepared. its funny because we actually took your advice and got the beardie first. maybe you remember the pics? andy will vouch for how tame it is. the other day when he was over my beardie let andy pet him:) i do know that even with handling iggys can get agressive during mating season but i guess thats something ill have to deal with when it happens:) i picture mysyelf with a garbage can lid in one hand and sword in the other fending off the evil dragon like some retarded monty python knight >LOL<
although we are keeping herps we have never kept before, ive had herps my entire life…much longer than fish. im much less worried about the iggy than i am the emerald tree boa we want ;D
That’s right, I forgot about the beardie. It sounds like you have a good plan in place, good luck with it! I can tell you from years of pet store experience, you want to see it eat aggressively before purchasing, and it’s not a bad idea to take it to a herp vet for deworming. The worst thing about iggy’s in season are the tail slaps, ouch! Nice to hear of people preparing for animals before they take the leap. Emerald tree boa…ooooh!
thanks for the advice and heads up about the worms. ive read that the worms arent as big an issue with CB but i switched my dog last year to Wincrest Animal Hospital specifically because they care for exotics.
the iggys not next on the list, but ill get pics up when we get one! Over the summer my son and i are going to build a planted viviarium for a couple of red eye tree frogs and we might get a small python first, more than likely a ball. My son is really good with the herps we have but i want to make sure he is 100% all in before we get anything big and demanding.
I would recommend one of the colubrid constrictors instead of a ball python. The pythons are sometimes difficult in terms of feeding(only brown rat pups, etc…), whereas the colubrids (corn, gopher, maybe milk) will pound down whatever you put in front of them. Also, for the record, the colubrids are 100% legal under Delaware law. The same cannot be said of any of the python species. (If you are concerned about such things. I am not.) My personal fav is the western hognose, not a constrictor, but really cool. Glad to hear you guys will be getting into snakes. They are my first love.
(If you are concerned about such things. I am not.)
i would be in the same boat as you.
my experience with snakes growing was strictly limited to anything i could catch in DE but some people might be surprised as to what you could find in DE 20 years ago. Anyways, i had a ball python for probably about 10 years when i was younger i would never belive that they were finicky eaters, but what do i know ;D
i definitely dont want a finicky eater because feeding live or fk rodents is out of the question for me. its going to be hard enough to feed f/t. i really want to get him a “beginner” boa or python that can be handled but not get to big. like i mentioned, we both really want an emerald boa but i dont think its a good place to start. i dont want his first “big” snake to be one he cant handle. do you have any suggestions that would fit? to be honest, because of my experience with balls i never considered anything else, i thought it would make the perfect starter python.
i like some of the corns and milks, especially some of the designers, but want to start with a “big” snake. as far as smaller snakes down the rode im considering a rough green snake mainly because of its diet and coloration. i also really like the redtail and rhino ratsnakes, green vinesnake, and the barrons racer. i know the rats and racer can be a little nasty and the vine is a rf’d lizard eater which wont work for us if we cant feed f/t. do you have any experience or opinions about any of these guys?
The tough spot with ball pythons is usually when they reach a size large enough to switch them from say large mice to rat pups. They often refuse anything but what they’ve been conditioned to accept as food. I kept one in the late 90’s that would only take gerbils. To be honest, as a first larger snake, I’d go with a redtail boa. Temperment is usually not a problem as long as they are handled and fed separately. It will get larger, but it will take a few years, by then your son will be a bit more prepared to look after it. IMO it’s a much easier to care for snake, better temperment, and hardier.
I had a friend that kept rhino rats, very pretty but fast and mean. Do you like the look of the Taiwan/Vietnamese Beauty (Elaphe taeniura)? They are a bit calmer. For what it’s worth, the meanest snake I’ve owned was a carpet/diamond python cross. That thing would bite the glass any time someone walked by. Rough greens are pretty snakes and pretty easy to care for. I had a mexican vine (looks just like the green, only brown) when I was younger, but as you said, it required live lizard feeders. At the time I lived in south central Wyoming and feeder lizards were easy to come by.
you know, its funny you mentioned the redtail boas. my son and i went to the academy of natural sciences in philly and they had a live reptile show. the last animal was a big red tail boa and the handler let all the children come down single file and touch the snake and my son hasnt hasnt stop talking about them since. the only reason i hadnt considered one is becaue of the size. here is the problem: i wont feed live, and i wont feed rabbits. do you think we can keep a red tail long term on frozen jumbos? again, ive read conflicting things on large boas. some people say that jumbos just arent big enough, and feeding mutiple rodents as opposed to one rabbit is not ideal and can lead to health issues. any opinions? have you kept one?
I’ll see if I can dig out some old pics. I’ve kept boas up to nine foot on jumbo F/T rats. Look at some of the online retailers (micedirect.com, etc…) Many times they offer “super jumbo’s”. I decided to get rid of my last redtail when I found out that my wife was pregnant with our first. Another option is the Dumeril’s boa. Very pretty snake, not as large and a bit more unusual.
the size of the red tails arent an issue, i just wasnt certain of keeping one longterm without going to rabbits. ive read that some people will offset smaller prey(i.e jumbos) with more frequent feedings.
do you know anything about color vs collection for these guys? i know most are sold as columbian or just as red tails but there seems to be quite a bit of difference in colors. ive seen some that are very lite in color, almost a greyish, where others are very deep and darkly colored(my preference). i cant tell if its because of collectino areas, sex, maturity or just random.
Most of the color phases are owing to where they originate. If you wanted a really light color, the Hogg Islands are the go to. For the typical deep brown/tan color, you are talking about a standard columbian redtail. Now all of the boas get darker with age, but it is certainly more or less pronounced depending on where they are from.
i had quite a number of ball pythons for a few years and i thought they were great snakes. As soon as you look around and make sure you get a captive bred or hatched one i never had any problems with them eating. I feed mine f/t or live both rats and mice depending on what was available and the only ones i had problems with were a few larger wild caught females i had. I would say though if you plan on keeping it on f/t i would suggest getting a baby as some adults can be a little pickier about switching if all they have ever eaten is live. Plus most (all good) breeders will tell you what they are eating and many already have their babies on f/t. I had 2 red tails as well and 1 i got as a baby and loved him to death, the other i got when he was about 5 foot and he was nasty. The people were extremely underfeding him (he was 5 foot and living on 1 mouse a month) and never handled him. Once he got good and fat he was a little better, but i could never trust him around other people and i didnt handle him alone.
yeah, i never had problems with my ball either. what did you feed the 5’ red tail? if i feel comfortable that im not affecting the snakes health by not feeding rabbits once its full size then i will probably start with a redtail. ive just gotten such contradictory opinions on the matter. some people say that you can simply feed smaller prey more frequently in lieu of larger prey and others say its bad for the snake and can cause digestion issues.
do you know where your redtail in the pic was collected from? that coloration is what i was referring to earlier. i really like the darker redtails a lot more.
I fed him jumbos ranging from once a week to once a month, but closer to once a week usually. I basically fed him when he seemed hungry and with him that was easy to tell lol. I generally tried to kept him overfed otherwise he would try and take my hand off. I am not sure where the people got him from, since he was a rescue for me. He did have some beautiful coloring though.
This is more along the lines of the coloring i like and its listed as an amazon basin redtail.
Well, if i wasnt convinced before, i am now. Ive got a few projects first like my 265g, a 2nd frag tank, and a RETF planted vivarium so im hoping i will get around to building a cage before the year is out. I’ll throw some pics up of the boa when we get her.
Btw, did either of you supplement the rodents you fed your snakes at all? I know they dont need UVB but ive heard its a good idea to inject the rodents with Ca and maybe a V&M before feeding, especially with f/t since you cant gutload. Any thoughts?
i didnt do anything like that although i bred my own rats (not many good, decent priced pet stores around where i lived at the time). Most of mine ate live but the few that ate f/t just ate ones that i froze from when i would have a few big litters.
Thanks ;D i had quite the collection. I had planned to breed them but i ended up moving back to delaware before any of the females got big enough and had to get rid of everyone. I had a pastel male, mojave male, spider male, 100% het piebald male and about 20 normal varying size females with some possible hets thrown in. The mojave was gorgeous but i cant seem to find any pics of him at the moment.
I know there was talk of herp sub-forum on DRC about a year or so ago but nothing really came of it. With so many people on the boards keeping herps it would be nice to get a subforum so we dont have to hijack other peoples threads to talk shop ;D
What do you guys currently have? Joe, i know you posted pics of your hognose before, do you still got him?
The second Jocephus mentioned deworming I was going to mention Wincrest I took my gecko their several times. I was pretty happy with them. Though it ended up being they were never sure exactly what happened and I ended up spending several hundred dollars on a $45 herp.(I was prepared for it as I never let myself buy a terrestrial animal unless I have $ in the bank for that emergency pet visit.)
Shawn I have always wanted tree frogs and planned on creating vivariums many times in the past. Ended up that my aquatic tanks take all my time and money though.
