Re: Spilotes caging

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Posted by Joe on December 06, 2001 at 23:21:26:

In Reply to: Spilotes caging posted by Pierson on December 05, 2001 at 12:40:54:

I have 3 adult imports too. I built a cage that is 4 ft by 3 ft by 3 ft and I'm thinking it may not be tall enough. My snakes hang out in a ball at the bottum of the cage and refuse all food. They have been dewormed (twice) and seem to be in good health. The enclosure stays at near 85 days and 78 nights. I've also reduced or, on most days have elilminated the overhead lights since I've heard (from Dan - in this thread) that they don't care for bright lights. But still after 6 weeks in captivity they haven't fed. Needless to say they are loosing weight fast given their high metabolism. In 2 weeks they lost 10 percent of their weight on average. Recently I started to force feed them rat pups which seemed to work until I upset them by moving some branches in their cage. Two of them promptly threw up the week old, mostly digested rats. As Dan suggested, a very tall (6 ft) cage might be needed to allow them the comfort of a high perch. Odd though that mine won't even venture to the top of their cage! These snakes are definately not for the beginner.

If you have photos of your spilotes I would love to ad them to my page on spilotes: www.herpnet.net/spilotes/

Joe

: I'm about to bulid a 6'x6'x3' cage for my trio of adult Spilotes and was wondering if anyone has any large setups that they have pics of. Mainly, I wanted to see how I could build perches, orient limbs, and possibly an elevated hide box. Thanks.

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: I have 3 adult imports too. I built a cage that is 4 ft by 3 ft by 3 ft and I'm thinking it may not be tall enough. My snakes hang out in a ball at the bottum of the cage and refuse all food. They have been dewormed (twice) and seem to be in good health. The enclosure stays at near 85 days and 78 nights. I've also reduced or, on most days have elilminated the overhead lights since I've heard (from Dan - in this thread) that they don't care for bright lights. But still after 6 weeks in captivity they haven't fed. Needless to say they are loosing weight fast given their high metabolism. In 2 weeks they lost 10 percent of their weight on average. Recently I started to force feed them rat pups which seemed to work until I upset them by moving some branches in their cage. Two of them promptly threw up the week old, mostly digested rats. As Dan suggested, a very tall (6 ft) cage might be needed to allow them the comfort of a high perch. Odd though that mine won't even venture to the top of their cage! These snakes are definately not for the beginner. : If you have photos of your spilotes I would love to ad them to my page on spilotes: www.herpnet.net/spilotes/ : Joe : : I'm about to bulid a 6'x6'x3' cage for my trio of adult Spilotes and was wondering if anyone has any large setups that they have pics of. Mainly, I wanted to see how I could build perches, orient limbs, and possibly an elevated hide box. Thanks.

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