*One* of my other hobbies (I have way too many)

[hakzaw1]

Update on my Coral-=-ATm the main problem i will face is finding food- being so large this one can eat as many as 10 skinks in the same day- something I am fairly sure NEVER happens in the wild. I did weigh a skink and they average ~1 to 3 grams. and 4 to 6 inches in length.
I guess the snake is `36 inches- dont want to disturb by weighing- measuring or probing to find sex. I will rub a fresh caught skink on a Anole -then feed the skink followed by an attempt to trick the Coral into eating it- they are much more easy to find than ther skinks and bigger too.

tried just offering an anole(with out scenting) but not interested.

when feeding the snake, it become very interested in anything that moves- making me rethink the idea that getting bit is not very likely when feeding- if handled the smell of a skink could be transfered to my fingers so....

It will be a quite a task to capture ~300 skink per year to feed this snake.

I am going to contact as many friends with kiddos and offer something for catching food for my snake- one ribbon or garter snake would be a meal close to a dozen skinks.

hak

[Bradfo69]

Why on earth are you feeding it skinks? Have you tried just going with a mouse from a pet store? I didn't think a snake would be all that particular. I always just used feeder mice or rats for my snakes and they ate every few weeks.

[hakzaw1]

Texas Coral Snake- (M. Tener)

It only eats skinks- other snakes or frogs.

IIRC heard of kinda force feedin g them small pinkies thru a tube?? yuck
so 'it' eats only skinks and small snakes-and small tree frogs- have not witnessed eating any frogs of all corals I worked with -tried at least 5 times.


I got lucky Sunday and found a ribbon snake(15 grams-18 inches) and it ate a med skink (1.5g) just before.
So the one day feed equals 11 skinks- should keep it growing (I use two hotrocks-enclosure is outside)

I hand offered the prey- quick sniff and it grabbed -head was upside down-
Invenomated for ~5 minutes - then spent 30 min. swallowing- I am only guessing that the Coral is ~36 inches- from what I have read- its unlikely that any snake eater will easily handle a prey >1/2 its size - so I was pushing the limit- the ribbonsnakes (garter family) are thankfully, very thin-
I am now thinking this is a male- due to tail shape.

For the very best overall results keeping this snake involves keeping all stress at a minimum.
So no sex probing or trying to measure length. My other Coral was ~18 inches-

I doubt that there are very many of these (Tx/Fl Coral) being kept- and this one IMO is exceptionally large and at least for now is eating better than I could have hoped. the record is accepted as ~48 inches in both states.

pics right after next shed.

hak

[Draco]

I remember a huge hissy fit fight on a herp forum because a guys critter only ate anoles and other small lizards, the thing that these people miss is while your pet in the wild would eat these things as a normal diet and as herp collectors some times have to set the cuteness of your pets food supply a side, it's just the way it is, we and our lizards need meat to live, we can go vegan but i dont think a snake would be even close to happy if his/her diet is off, I still don't like the sounds mice make when one of my dragons gets a hold of one, but as snacks they have the fat the dragons need and oddly sound like breaking raw pasta noodles, I am just glad i trained them at a young age that my fingers are not food. when they are hatchlings i let them goto town on my fingers and learn rather fast that they cant eat then lol

[hakzaw1]

-My new Coral is doing exceptionally well. so far only refusing to eat an anole after rubbing head on night skink- fed the skink- offer4ed the anole and nio interest- I no longer feed Corals by releasing prey in enclosure-


i am not used to this species being so easy to keep (knock wood) and the size--

large captive numbers have only been successful with force feeding- at two week intervals with venom extracted each time- up to 200 snakes most caught by the locals who wanted to help with anti-venin work-- many had to be released due to condition and when it closed IIRC they only were able to 'place' the better specimens- rest were released around Ocala and Orlando.

Somehow somebody says they estimate 100.000 Corals in TX and Fl- and that because they are so rarely seen in 'no danger' unlike snakes like the Indigo in Fl( one of my favs!!)a threatened species.

FYI
NO 'herpers' (even amature) have ever been killed and I bet VERY few bitten- with a lot of dry bites- by a TX/FL Coral- docile- but i would not touch the nose withscent of skink on your finger.

BUT Jeff Corwin was bitten by a less docile species a Coral snake in Cent. or S. Am. IIRC
and now has a tat of it on his arm. I FBooked him about my coral but no reply so far.



I will be needing to set up a place for the food to 'reside' between meals- Should be able to find lots of newborn/hatched snakes soon. IMo even trying pinkies is a waste- and dont care for the 'shooters' they have for that-eww-- mouse in a tube--

When it goes into 'shed' I will bag and weight and see if i can get it 'tubed' without much stress.

maybe a 4 or 5 foot piece of soft tubing- home depot- mark it off in inches- record is not quite 4 feet- & very likely a dead Coral snake- very hard to accurately measure a live snake.Mine could very well be one of the biggest currently being kept.longest time kept was afaik 7 years..lifespan can be more than 12 years
. pics when IT looks better.(after the shed )

[BlueFang]

FYI
NO 'herpers' (even amature) have ever been bitten by a TX/FL Coral-
BUT Jeff Corwin was bitten by a bad Coral snake in central or S. Am. IIRC
and now has a tat of it on his arm. I FBooked him about my coral but no reply so far.

Coral snakes are beautiful and being rear-fanged, envenomation is more difficult than say vipers, however, I don't know if I would trust myself with something like that where there is no "backup plan". Last I heard, Wyeth pharmaceuticals stopped manufacturing the antivenin for Coral Snakes due to lack of demand back in like 2009 (i.e., they couldn't make a profit off of it). As there were no backup plans for sources of antivenin, the FDA has been extending the expiration period of the last produced lots of antivenin, which is now like 5 years after they were originally labeled to expire. Scary. A venomous herper buddy of mine was led to believe that the hospitals that had vials of the last remaining antivenin were holding onto them (in secret) - though I find it truly hard to believe that in the case of an emergency, they wouldn't be offered up without reluctance.

It looks like there is a trial for a new type of Coral snake antivenin underway in Florida. All in all, it is still a scary situation, as toxicity wise, the Coral snake is one of the most venomous snakes in the US - if not THE most venomous.

I still don't understand why pharmaceutical companies can make decisions based on profit when people's lives are at stake.

[DrEvil]

I went to the reptile show in Columbia today. I was amazed at the variety of colors and patterns. There was more to see there than online. I like both the ball pythons and corn snakes. I'll probably go with a corn snake to begin with even though I like the patterns on pythons more. I'd rather have one that seems to be easier to feed to start with. I was surprised to see plenty of spiders, arachnids, and non-feeder rodents there. One vendor even had some birds and a mini pig. There was one python I really liked. There was 3 words describing it, one of which I can't remember, cinnamon ??? neon. It looked similar to this.

[BlueFang]

I went to the reptile show in Columbia today. I was amazed at the variety of colors and patterns. There was more to see there than online. I like both the ball pythons and corn snakes. I'll probably go with a corn snake to begin with even though I like the patterns on pythons more. I'd rather have one that seems to be easier to feed to start with. I was surprised to see plenty of spiders, arachnids, and non-feeder rodents there. One vendor even had some birds and a mini pig. There was one python I really liked. There was 3 words describing it, one of which I can't remember, cinnamon ??? neon. It looked similar to this.

I'd go with whichever your really want. There is not much difference in feeding response between a corn snake and ball python. Corn snakes can be difficult to feed as babies, where *some* ball pythons will go off feed during the winter. It's not really that big of a deal - they all usually eat when they get hungry enough.

In my experience, Ball Pythons tend to put up with handling a bit better than corn snakes - several of my BPs will hang out around my neck or in and around my lap for hours - whereas corn snakes usually have places to go, things to do, people to see, etc...

The snake in your pic looks expensive, whatever it is. Looks like it has some Banana (or Coral Glow) in the mix - maybe with cinnamon as you remember. Gorgeous snake though.

[DrEvil]

That pictures is one I found while trying to find the name of morph name for that python. The place that had it was selling it for $600. That's cheap compared to some others though. I saw a morph $2,000.

One place had a jungle carpet python that was yellow and black. It was more active than a ball python but not as much as a corn snake. Do you think one of those would be good for a beginner?