#snake husbandry

[omg-snakes]

Help Us Do Real Science!

@talesfromtreatment and I have an ask for our fellow corn snake keepers and breeders.

We're gathering information on corn snake size by age and we need community scientists like you to provide the largest possible body of data.

@talesfromtreatment will be using the information gathered to build an accurate, statistics-supported corn snake growth and feeding guide based on ACTUAL data from ACTUAL corn snake keepers like you! I'm just the numbers gal.

Here's what we need:

Your snake's age (in years)

Your snake's weight (in grams)

A top-down photo of your snake's entire body with an inch or centimeter reference. (see photo below)

All of this information entered in our online form, linked below or copy/pasta: https://forms.gle/QtAwmiFa6fpBewFs8

https://forms.gle/QtAwmiFa6fpBewFs8

We'd love to get data on older snakes, younger snakes, fatter snakes, skinnier snakes. If you've got a corn snake we want their age, weight, and a photo of them with a measuring device.

Photos don't need to be fancy, just give us a top-down view of your snake and a ruler/tape measure/yardstick on a flat surface.

The survey is anonymous and we won't share your photos with anyone nor use them for any purpose beyond collecting morphometric data for this specific study.

Please please please help us collect as much data as possible. Share with your reptile-keeping friends, signal boost, submit your metrics, and stay tuned for updates!

https://forms.gle/QtAwmiFa6fpBewFs8

[thlpp]

The boyo has discovered his shelf, and I think he approves.

Finished his course of antibiotics, and white blood cell count came back normal, so we're all set to enjoy our new accommodations.

[ritori666]

Wonderful seeing her enjoy the new plants I set up ❤

[lemonsharks]

My snake: mother may I have a rödent

Me: before a cold snap in which I am prepared to zip tie you securely inside a bag and then stuff you into my bra if we lose power and then run out of reptile heat packs? Absolutely not

[flameraven]

I happened to check Facebook today and saw a group rehoming reptiles and other exotics in my state. And scrolling through... I'm really glad these animals are being rehomed because a lot of them are in poor condition or have just awful, empty enclosures. A hide and a bowl of water and not much else. Tanks or racks that were way too small.

It made me so so sad. :( Please do your research before getting a pet, especially exotics.

[cobragardens]

Yeah if you keep your ball pythons like this you don't just look like an animal abuser.

This is the standard of keeping ball pythons. Its the most common technique, and it IS widly spread.

We can do better than this. This kind of stuff doesnt allow for a range of natural behaviors. It makes us look like animal abusers. Yes, the animals survive, but they cannot thrive in this setting. There’s literally not enough room for even one of them to stretch all the way out.

We can do better. We have to do better because this isn’t good for the animals health wise, or even mentally. It also gives HSUS and PETA more grounds to ban reptiles as pets.

Enrichment provides animals with an outlet for natural behaviors and promotes healthy animals. There are tons of studies on the benefits of enrichment- it’s not an extra step- it’s necessary for the good of the animal and is part of proper husbandry.

Dont be like this picture; dare to do more.

(image source purposely withheld)

[kaijutegu]

From the Rattlecam project- "The first baby garter snake has arrived at the den! It immediately found the perfect pillow."

More rattlesnake snuggles, from the same location.

I know a lot of the time in captive care settings, we warn keepers that their snakes aren't cuddling- that they're competing for resources. And I'm of the opinion that for the vast majority of captive snakes, they don't benefit from prolonged, enforced conspecific contact.

But it's fascinating to watch these rattlesnake cams because rattlesnakes do benefit from prolonged conspecific contact. Rattlesnakes den together, and several of them are highly social species. If I was designing an exhibit for rattlesnakes, I'd certainly put more than one animal in there, because when you observe them in the wild they spend so much time together- which we didn't know until we started setting up cameras to observe them. It just goes to show that you really need to pay attention to the particular needs of individual species. What's good for rattlers and garters isn't necessarily good for ball pythons and cornsnakes.

[omg-snakes]

This is an interesting stress behavior that we don't see very often in corn snakes!

The tail wiggle that you see here is called caudal luring and it's distinct from the vibrational shakey-tail threat display. This is a defense maneuver!

Shakey-tail is intended to trick a potential predator into thinking the snake is a venomous rattler.

By contrast, caudal luring is a last-ditch effort to get a predator to attack a snake's thrashing tail instead of their head, while the head is focused on leading the body the heck outta danger. They may lose part of their tail, but they have a better chance of living to tell about it. Some snakes and other reptiles may use caudal luring as a hunting strategy, too!

This snake is definitely stressed, not hunting, so I recorded a 5-second clip and then focused on helping them feel safe and in control of their body by loosening my hold on them and letting them move freely through my hands. They stopped the behavior and we moved on to the next part of the handling session.

A tiny bit of stress with a positive outcome can inoculate against future stress. The goal isn't to prevent any stress from ever occurring, but to limit stress to what is necessary for proper husbandry (in this case, taking a length measurement and transferring to a feeding cup) and to work with the animal to help them overcome stress when it occurs.

[thlpp]

Sun King has left the building

Some time between late afternoon of 30th of September and the morning of the 1st of October Sunny has passed away as a result of multi-systemic antibiotic-resistant infection.

Sunny came to us aged 2.5-3 years in 2017, very sick, and after almost a year of treatments he eventually recovered; however some resistant bacteria remained in his body. As long as his immune system remained strong, he would be able to suppress the infection, but it was unlikely to ever fully clear.

It seems that the incident with the mass that Sunny had an emergency surgery for back in April marked the beginning of the end.

We took him to the veterinary hospital for a necropsy yesterday, and the results were that pretty much every system in his body was impacted, and he couldn't go on.

In the seven years he's had with us, Sunny brought innumerable moments of joy to us, and we're devastated by his loss.

I haven't yet fully processed it TBH. It's going to be some rough weeks ahead.

If you wish, please donate to your local reptile rescue in his name.

Goodbye sweet Sunny boy.

[buttered-milky]

No wonder he’s depressed. Where’s the UV light. The temperature gradient. A pool of water even. To cool off in, perhaps. Where is the regular eating schedule. Fucking basking spot??? Naps???? Is there even a Little Bit of humidity for shedding. This place looks drier than a skeleton’s pussy are you kidding me

[scoriarose]

Trying to get pics of your pets be like

[teal-fiend]

more on hive mind

if you are a hive mind that contains a pred. You can be the pred, prey, and observer all by yourself.

[mossiestpiglet]

[ID: a pile of plant cuttings in front of a naturalistic reptile enclosure. End ID]

Oort’s enclosure had overgrown to the point where the pothos leaves were trying to stop me from opening the doors, so I finally accepted it was time for a major trim.

[clown-sip]

Clown Adopt Catalog: Patreon release

[evelegy]

[Super Dwarf] Reticulated Pythons are NOT 'Beginner Reptiles'

I have had it with this stupid, reckless man. He is either proof that a phd doesn't make you intelligent, or he is willingly shilling for Reach Out Reptiles for lucrative gain and is morally bankrupt.

Let's establish some things upfront; the Reticulated Python is a species of snake native to a broad swathe of Southeast Asia, spanning from India to the Phillipines. They grow to be the longest snake in the world. Medusa, a snake owned by a Haunted House attraction LLC in Kansas City, was 25 feet long and weighed 350 pounds. This is a large and powerful animal capable of killing and even eating a person.

Now, reptile people often have pathologies that overlap with gun people, in that large or venomous animals under their control get them off. Any trip to a reptile show will confirm this (They even have their own NRA in the form of USARK). The impressive size of Reticulated Pythons, plus the wide variety of rare (thus high dollar value) color morphs, made them very popular in the pet trade in North America for a period of time.

How does one care for such a large animal? Well, if you look at known animal abuser, Jay Brewer's retic breeding facility, Prehistoric Pets, the answer is to keep them in small boxes. Hundreds of these snakes are bred each season so potentially one will come out with a ten thousand dollar or more color combo. What happens to the surplus animals? Where are they going? Well they either become food for cobra breeding projects, put in the freezer to die cold and dark, or are sold to the general public. These sales can occur with absolutely no oversight or background checks and are not self regulated by the reptile community and can occur at shockingly low prices. A child can walk into an Indiana reptile show and walk out with a baby specimen of the second largest snake in the world for less than sixty bucks. If this sounds horrifying, you'd be right!!!

When these animals don't die from improper care/neglect, or aren't just destroyed, they are released into the wild when they get too big and subsequently wreak havoc on the ecosystem. They can even injure or kill their owners in rare circumstances. For decades, an entire industry operated like this until two major factors would threaten the status quo.

The first is an ammendment to the Lacey Act, a piece of legislation that controls the importation of 'injurious' species to the US. This ammendment specificied that large constrictors, such as Reticulated Pythons or Anacondas, were barred from being transported across state lines. This virtually crippled a retic breeder's ability to make in person sales. In effect, the retic community created the circumstances for this law to exist by failing to properly hold people in their community accountable for their reckless and dangerous behavior. A retic breeder is not going to call foul on another retic breeder's behavior when they want to keep a business relationship with that individual. This is why inhuman monsters like Samson Pruitt (who deserves to be beaten to death in the streets) can operate in the space for so long with nary a peep from USARK. When Pruitt was exposed, so where all the people he did business with, including some of the big names in the reptile industry, like Reach Out Reptiles (who will become important later).

A second big impact on the Reticulated Python racket is millennials with social media accounts and disposable income; youtubers. The information age means that it is extremely easy to discover just how big the animal you want to get will be. There are dozens of blog posts, videos, and Instagram reels about just such a thing. A lot of this content flexes on how nice and elaborate the setups for their pet animals are, leading to viewers wanting to emulate that. The standards for reptile care are organically increasing because no one wants to get roasted on TikTok by having a substandard setup. How effectively can you privide a killer setup for a Reticulated Python? Not easily. Many millennials do not own houses or spaces large enough to accommodate a giant snake, and the cost of feeding and heating an animal like that is prohibitive in a way that wouldn't just be shameful. The emphasis now is trends towards smaller species of reptiles that are easier to max out the care for; wow people with the enclosure/setup rather than wow them with a large animal that is poorly taken care of.

So how does the industry react? Enter the [Super Dwarf Reticulated Python]. Garret Hartle, owner of the Reticulated Python breeding facility Reach Out Reptiles popularized the term in the past few years. These [conveniently perfect] snakes hail from island populations of Reticulated Pythons that don't grow as large because of the limited food in a smaller environment. A vendor trying to sell you a Super Dwarf Retic at a show might say they'll grow to 8 feet long, as opposed to 25 feet. That is definitely more manageable, but an eight foot snake is by no means a small animal. Their higher than normal intelligence makes them competent escape artists, and a strike from an eight foot snake *will* need stitches. A prospective owner might be prepared for that and do their research accordingly. For my first snake I chose a species that can theoretically get to six feet, and some people would consider that large. The key word there for our lesson today is 'theoretical'. Six feet is the extreme end of size for the animal I own, verifiable evidence shows that snakes of this species do not exceed six feet, and rarely even hit six feet.

The issue here is that the only information that seems to be available on these [Super Dwarf] Retics is information from the people *selling them*. They invented the terminology. What you won't find is a verifiable scientific study or dataset to suggest that a Super Dwarf Reticulated Python is substantially different from a Mainland Reticulated Python. Yes, predator populations on islands do trend smaller than their mainland counterparts because of lack of prey availability. Snakes reach breeding age at smaller sizes. Theoretically, spawn of those lines would stay smaller. *Theoretically*.

These snakes grow smaller because they have limited availability to food. In a captive environment the keeper *removes that limitation*. There is nothing on a genetic level preventing a Super Dwarf from growing to the same size as it's mainland counterpart if fed consistently... this means to maintain a small size you have to carefully curate a diet, which is not something a beginner keeper is likely to be proficient at. All that supports a Super Dwarf Retic staying small is just *a best guess*.

Reticulated Pythons can live for over thirty years. During that time they *never stop growing*. Some growing slowly, some fast, but regardless they never stop. Super Dwarf nomenclature has only been a thing gaining momentum in the past few years, despite Retics being a part of the hobby for decades and decades. All of this is spear-headed by Garret Hartle and his sales operation. If this sounds like a scam, *that's because it is*. Of course all of these snakes bred and sold within the last few years look small. His language always carefully hedges that the snakes are 'likely' to get to seven feet, or it's a 'reliable estimate', but he never gives a guarantee because he knows in 10 years all these buyers are going to be screwed. It's the same nonsense lies and obfuscation that you see surrounding teacup pigs.

Hartle is generally correct though, a Super Dwarf Retic that's only been bred to other Retics of the same two islands is likely to stay smaller. Uh-oh, here comes the Lacey Act with their importation laws!!! Now the only [Super Dwarf] Retics that breeders will ever have to work with are now all that's currently here in the US. How is this sustainable? You risk overly inbreeding the population and the viable offspring become way too cost prohibitive to gain a portion of the marketplace.

Enter crossbreeding. You take the Super Dwarf and breed it to a Mainland for a snake that technically has Super Dwarf genetics and so it's more likely to grow small, but less of a guarantee. They will sell these at lower prices, with whacky percentages listed like "37.5% SD". These confuse the medium information consumer to the point where they have to rely on the seller of the animal to be honest with them. Which they are not because they want that sale more than anything else.

Super Dwarf Reticulated Pythons became a hot topic because Hartle would send every YouTuber in the space one of his snakes for their collection and then have them specifically talk about on their programming about how Reach Out Reptiles is the only reliable source for 'true' Super Dwarf Retics that he sells at crazy prices. His business is advertised for in the above video from Clint. No other reptile breeder gets that same treatment across so many different channels. It's also probably no coincidence that both Clint and Hartle are weird religious nuts.

The point here is that a Super Dwarf Reticulated Python is a TERRIBLE suggestion for someone beginning to keep reptiles and Clint is being very disingenuous for recommending them to an impressionable audience.

The promises on max size are just wishful thinking.

Finding a 'true' island locality Reticulated Python is prohibitively expensive.

Vendors will lie and obfuscate the genetics and sources of their animals to make a sale, and not only to low information buyers.

There are much better and tamer snakes you can buy as a pet for the 6ft-8ft range that will not exceed those sizes and are easier to acquire. Go get a boa constrictor at your local animal shelter PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

[heyyitsjayy]

Interrupted a freshly shed Yang from a night bask to hook up everyone’s day lights + UV. She immediately started to explore her enclosure as if it was brand new. And in some ways, it is! Ball pythons still have UV-sensitive cones despite being active at dusk/night.

Imagine if you were put into a new space where red wavelengths were cut off. All of the colors would appear drastically different. This is why providing UV is so important to ALL reptiles!