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Nick Pai   Zach01313   Concolor1   Occ1123   Occ1123   Amphibiandude   JackAsp   Concolor1   Greatballzofire   JackAsp  
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 #2059999


Nick Pai
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 Fresh Caught

Just caught a 8 inch bull snake by the deschutes. tried to feed a 1 week pinky didnt eat. help?
08/19/09  12:07am

 #2060129


Zach01313
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   Message To: Nick Pai   In reference to Message Id: 2059999


 Fresh Caught

leave it alone for at leats a week when you ever acquire a new snake so it can get used to its surroundings, you probably handled it to much and now it is to stressed out to eat......
08/19/09  08:22am

 #2060175


Concolor1
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   Message To: Zach01313   In reference to Message Id: 2060129


 Might Even Be a Hatchling . . .

That hasn’t had its first shed. My corns never eat until they’ve had their first post-natal shed.

The advice about letting it "settle in" for a week or so is sound . . . Pits can be a little cantankerous, but I find them worthwhile . . .

Got a pic so we know it isn’t a garter snake? Sorry to be a bit confrontive, but eight inches for a Pacific gopher sounds just a tad small; the GB hatchling I bought last year was around ten or eleven although pencil thin . . .



08/19/09  09:39am

 #2060385


Occ1123
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   Message To: Concolor1   In reference to Message Id: 2060175


 EVEN BETTER IDEA...

You good let that WILD-caught snake be WILD. I really can’t stand when people remove animals from the wild that are not readily available as captive-bred just to avoid buying one.

I strongly advise you to reconsider, and if you want a Pit so bad, a captive-bred and FEEDING baby normal should run you no more than $30-40.

My 2 cents.


Alex
08/19/09  03:15pm

 #2060386


Occ1123
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   Message To: Occ1123   In reference to Message Id: 2060385


 EVEN BETTER IDEA...

...I meant "could let it go"
08/19/09  03:15pm

 #2060387


Amphibiandude
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   Message To: Occ1123   In reference to Message Id: 2060385


 EVEN BETTER IDEA...

Amen dude,
Don’t take animals from the wild seriously
08/19/09  03:15pm

 #2060562


JackAsp
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   Message To: Amphibiandude   In reference to Message Id: 2060387


 EVEN BETTER IDEA...

Or, if you’re going to, do it earlier. This is August already. If you caught a snake in, say, June, and kept it a few weeks and things didn’t work ouit, you could let it go again and it would pretty much go on with its life. But you don’t really have a few weks to play around. If you let it go in September, when the days are geting shorter and the nights are getting cold, it’s not going to eat anyway, and will have to try to hibernate withiout any calories stored up. Odds are it will be dead before spring kicks in. Yeah, you might be able to settle it in and have it do okay as a pet, but it’s a very unair gamble. if you win, the snake gets to live in a cage. If you lose, the snake gets to die. Your profile says you’re in Oregon. This would be less urgent if you were in Texas or something, where the winter is shorter and the peripheral seasons are warmer.



08/19/09  09:09pm

 #2060591


Concolor1
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   Message To: Amphibiandude   In reference to Message Id: 2060387


 Re: Even Better Idea . . .

Forty-five years ago I was a young Little Leaguer attending an end-of-the-season picnic in a canyon a couple of miles east of here (within Utah’s Wasatch Mountain range). Some of the other kids had caught a snake; I was certain, from my Dr. Zim’s Field Guide that it was a "pine snake"; I realize now it was a probably a really pale and particularly attractive morph of a Great Basin Gopher snake (unless somebody had captured an Eastern Pine, brought it here, and released it); this color phase is only now being made available commercially at premium prices . . .

This story has an unhappy ending; one of the kids informed his mother the snake wasn’t a rattlesnake (which do occur on the canyon ledges), but she, in totally asinine fashion, told the kids they "better kill it to make sure."

The savagery of those kids stoning that snake to death long ago shocked me; my voice had been drowned out, of course, when I insisted the snake was harmless and deserved to live . . .

That memory was still with me when my kids and I stumbled upon a smallish GB gopher in a city park south of here . . . I had no qualms about bringing it home, and it’s nearly half grown today; given that it was less than a hundred yards from a subdivision, I think my choice is imminently defensible, and the snake will fit into my future breeding plans...

Living as I do in one of the more "moralistic" states around, I tend to take a strong stance against extremist thinking in any form; the "black and white" element that sees "all snakes as bad" is also present in the "Don’t ever remove snakes from the wild" crowd; some of us are capable of mature and responsible choices in this area, and it’s at least mildly insulting to to imply that we aren’t making a responsible decision.

I’m familiar with the area where Nick caught the snake (I enjoy flyfishing the Deschutes myself); it’s one of the least populated areas in Oregon (at least around Maupin), and I see no harm in removing a snake from that area so long as such actions are done in moderation . . . Jack Asp does have a good point about it being August if you’re going to release the snake, although if you’re down the river and closer to the Gorge there’s a little more time . . .

Anyway, if I do run across one of those Great Basin morphs, I’m going to "appropriate it" as breeding stock with the likely knowledge it would be the last snake I’m ever likely to remove from the wild . . . Utah has laws against keeping a number of "sensitive species" like milk snakes, mountain and California King snakes, and some others, but gopher snakes don’t fall into that category . . .

What I do hope is those who holler about wild snakes will re-direct their anger at those who wantonly kill any snake they find; those sorts are the real enemies of wildlife...
08/19/09  09:47pm

 #2060622


Greatballzofire
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   Message To: Concolor1   In reference to Message Id: 2060591


 Re: Even Better Idea . . .

I have two snakes that started life out in the wild. The California king was a yearling almost killed by one of my cats before I was able to rescue him. He healed up and I still have him over a year later. I got rid of his parasite load (mites mainly) and he seems to be a happy camper, having become quite tame.

The Pacific gopher snake is another yearling I found this spring when she got trapped under a piece of plywood by a big feral cat, with no escape route, and the cat was not about to give up. When I brought her home and fed her, it was like she had always been tame, taking the fuzzies from my fingers.

So life for these creatures is not always a bad thing in captivity, sometimes it is an upgrade, especially if there are a lot of cats in the area.
08/19/09  10:34pm

 #2060672


JackAsp
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   Message To: Greatballzofire   In reference to Message Id: 2060622


 Re: Even Better Idea . . .

Yeah, it’s really just a seasonal concern. I have a lot more actual issue about going into a pet shop and BUYING a wild snake, therefore encouraging somebody down the line to run around collecting them like theyre aluminum cans to be cashed in, than I do about carefully adjusting something like Pit that, let’s face it, does often settle in just fine. But, equally realistically, there’ll still be snakes out there next spring/summer to collect early enough that there’s still a backup plan, just in case.
08/20/09  01:26am


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