Some cottonmouth and watersnake photos

Blackadder, you mentioned that you feed your snake rosy reds. I saw this on Kingsnake.com. It's about feeding turtles, but also applies to snakes. Maybe something to think about. I don't know if its true or not.

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1215060,1216895

First off, I doubt copper accumulates in goldfish. Copper sulfate is used to treat food fish and the FDA gets a little concerned about things that can accumulate. Now malachite green can be used on "bait fish" and it can be absorbed by fish. This substance is an organic coal tar dye, whose color resembles the color of copper mineral malachite but it does not contain copper. It also is a nasty chemical but I don't think it's used routinely in gold fish production. Common salt would be the most likely treatment.
So what is the problem with goldfish? It is something that is natural in them. This is the enzyme thiaminase, this enzyme breaks down the vitamin B-1. This most likely the culprit in deaths of animals fed goldfish as a sole food. Fish in the minnow family share this enzyme, ie rosy reds, smelt.
So what to do the obvious simple thing is to gut load the gold fish with food high in B-1. The other would be to use non-goldfish. I found this list on a website see the link: http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Art...Thiaminase.htm
Note Sunfish do not contain this enzyme and would make a more natural diet. As for as crayfish go you might check seafood stores for live crayfish. Doing a web search for live louisiana crayfish turns up a lot of people that ship live crayfish from bait to super jumbo size. 5lbs of crawdads should last you awhile. Sachs Aquaculture sells small quanities of cray fish see: http://aquaculturestore.com/index.html

HTH
Thiaminase

That water snake is absolutely fascinating.
The UK kinda sucks for wild reptiles, although we do have these:


Grass Snake, non-venomous, feigns death when highly stressed.


Adder, venomous, illegal to keep in captivity

And the smooth snake which is highly rare and illegal to capture.
(No photo of the smooth snake because it is that rare)

We also have an abundance of lizards. (Mostly the slow worm, mistaken for a snake.)

I'd love a watersnake. But I doubt you could get them (CB) in the UK, I wouldn't import.

They're both beautiful snakes.

The adder is fascinating. I think the colors are --- striking.

How common are they in the UK? I noticed in another thread that the photographer was holding a small one by the tail near what appeared to be some kind of bog. Are they partial to watery areas?

Quite common, sometimes they are found near watery areas, but you're most likely to find more Grass Snakes near the watery areas.
Grass Snakes are kind of like water snakes, they love to swim.
Shame you can't catch and keep them though -sigh-

SkyChimp - Thanks for the links, they have a lot of good info. I had only read a bit about thiaminase and only recently found out that rosy reds contained it, and I immediately switched to scented pinkies.

Where I live, in Ontario, Canada doesn't have too many common types of reptiles either. I can only usually find Common Garters and Northern Red Bellies, and although we have other species such as Eastern Milk Snakes and Smooth Green snakes, they're not very common, or at least not where I live. In some parts of extreme southern Ontario, such as Pelee Island, we have species such as Eastern Rat Snakes and Blue Racers as well as a subspecies of Northern Water Snake called the Lake Erie Water Snake, which I believe doesn't have any markings, just pure light gray. The only lizard we have is the Five-Lined Skink.

Originally Posted by Drucifer

And the smooth snake which is highly rare and illegal to capture.
(No photo of the smooth snake because it is that rare)

more info about the Smooth Snake
http://www.wildlifebritain.com/thesmoothsnake.php

I recently took some pictures of my Northern eating, so I thought I would share them on here. She is now taking normal unscented pinkies, which means I don't have to rub smelly fish onto the pinkies anymore!





Enjoy

I also recently bought two Cali Kings to add to my collection, and man their feeding response is amazing. I put them, my corns, and my water snake into a new 5-enclosure cabinet I built, and now I have 3 empty 15 gallon tanks just sitting there in my room. Not a good thing to have while I'm hopelessly addicted to buying snakes, lol.

Gorgeous snake, BA. Look at it's mouth! So clean and healthy looking.

By the way, I know about cali-king's feeding responses. Last weekend I was tending to a milksnake. I made the mistake of placing it back in its cage and then picking up a cali-king about 5 feet long without washing my hands (a big no-no). I went to support the king's head and it flicked its tongue over my left ring finger, then locked on. I tell you, they can bite like hell. Not only that, but they chew once they latch on. I held its head under a flow of cold water and it wouldn't let go. The owner said in the calmest tone, "That's highly unusual." Yeah, and it hurt like hell, too. We had to "credit card" it off (slip a credit card under its upper jaw to disloge its teeth). It left 4 neat rows of teeth marks.

It doesn't look like much now, but this is 1.5 weeks later:

He must have really been convinced you were dinner! I actually got bitten by one of mine last night for the first time, it was also the first time being bitten by any of my snakes. I had just handled him for a bit, and he was being really nice not musking and not even trying to get away, so I put him back in his enclosure after a few minutes. After I put him down I sorta brushed against his side and he turned around really fast, and went into a defensive posture, musking all over the place. Then I decided that I shouldn't let him think that he's scaring me off with this attitude, so I tried to pick him up again to calm him down. I was so scared to get bitten for the first time, I wasn't sure if I would be able to pick him up, and he struck at every movement I made. After about 10 strikes I thought I should just get over it and pick him up, and he must have bitten me 3 or 4 times, only one of which I actually felt for more than the duration of the strike. It made the tiniest bit of blood come out, and it didn't even hurt at all. At least now I know what I'm dealing with, but he's only a few months old. I'm sure an adult would hurt a lot though. My arms are already shredded up by my crazy cat, so its not the pain of being bitten that really bothers me, its more the shock of it and not knowing when its going to happen.