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If you are not an experienced keeper of reptiles, many people will ask advice from the people at their local pet shops. Please keep in mind that the advice you get there is only as good as the training of the person waiting on you. It is a better idea to buy a good book and research the animal that you are considering to own before keeping it in a captive situation. By all means, do a lot of research. It won't hurt and you will only learn more.
Housing for a colubrid is simple. Depending on the species, a 20 gallon long lank will work great. Of course, bigger is better. You will need enough room for a warm end and a cool end in the cage, place for a water bowl and hiding area. You will also need to buy a lid that will hold your snake inside. Snakes are very good at finding a way out, so keeping them in is important. You can purchase sliding lockable lids designed to keep reptiles in their tanks, or you can buy a basic lid and buy seperate tank lid clips. Either way you will want to make sure you use them. Do not trust a book or rock on top of the cage. Many folks have lost snakes this way.
Probably the basic, most important thing for the health of your snake is having a good heat source. Since reptiles are cold blooded, the only way that they can regulate their body temperature is to move from a warm spot to a cooler spot to thermoregulate. Therefore the heat source should be located at one third of the enclosure, so your snake can move to it, or away from it when they feel the need to. They also need heat to properly digest their food. An under tank heater will work well for this. A heat gradient of 76-84° is ideal, and a hot spot of 88° respectively is good to keep available for most colubrid snakes. Keeping 1/4 to 1/3 of the tank or cage heated for a heat spot is needed, the rest of course being the cool side. Remember they are cold-blooded and depend on you to keep their home warm. Never use heat rocks or depend on heat from a light source. Being that lights should only be used for 10-12 hours, there will be 12-14 hours that there is no heat source, therefore an UTH; under tank heater, is recommended to provide heat.
Reptiles feel more safe and secure when they have a place to hide. For this reason, you should provide a place for your snake to hide. There are commercially manufactured products on the market for this purpose, or you can use something as simple as a plastic container with a hole cut in the side or top. You should provide two hiding places. One on the cool end, and one on the warm end, or just provide one and put it in the middle of the enclosure.
A bowl of fresh water that is big enough for your snake to curl up in should be provided. The water should be checked often, and changed when necessary. Some times snakes will actually defecate in their water bowl. Changing the water completely every week is a good idea, but assume it may need to be changed before that at times. If you are unsure of the quality of your local water supply, you can replace it with bottled water if you so choose. Just remeber to keep it fresh and clean. A water bowl will give a boost in humidity as well.
There are many products on the market today that you can use on the floor of your enclosure, or you can use something as simple as newspaper. It is really up to what each person wants in eye appeal, and ease of cleaning. I prefer products such as aspen bedding, fir bark, cypress bark, newspaper or paper towels. If using a wood chip product, you will need to remove the snake from the cage, place it in a suitable sized Rubbermaid or like container and feed it in that. The reason for this is that they can swallow the substrate and it can get impacted in the gut and cause problems, even death. Any soiled or wet substrate will need to be cleaned and replaced, thus the ease of changing substrates plays a part on what you will want to use.
A feeding schedule of one prey item per week should work fine. Colubrids in general will start out on pinky mice, and the size of the meal should be increased as the snake grows. The size of the prey item should equal the same size as the girth of the snake. Big meals can rot in the gut if they are to big to digest in an apropriate amount time. If your snake ever regurgitates its meal, there might not be enough heat for it to properly digest its food. Or you may have fed it too large a meal, or you may be feeding too often. It is also important to not handle your snake for a few days after it has eaten. If regurgitation occurs, give your snake a rest for a few days to a week, and then resume feeding with a much smaller meal. Also space the meals farther apart until you are sure that your snake is digesting its meal properly. If you can see the lump made by the meal for more than a couple of days then the meal may be too large. Again, if your using wood chips as substrate, remove the snake into a feeding container and place it back in the cage. After the snake has eaten, gently place the snake back into the cage.
When it comes time for you to purchasing a snake as a pet, understand that they are "look at" pets and not something that should be handled often. This is a misbelief that constant handling is good and will tame them. Most times this is stressful upon them and causes them more bad than good. On the other hand, snakes are very interesting animals that have a special purpose in life. They are very different from what the norm is, and to me this is why I find them so interesting. So, take in all the needs of your snake and understand the husbandry that goes along with it. Keeping an understanding of your pets needs will ensure it a better life. Do more research on the species you have and/or are interested in. Specifics between species are different and should be looked into to fully understand their own needs. This care sheet is general information and should be followed by more study.
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