rear-fanged stuff

First on the orginal question there is no problem with importing any rear fanged snakes. In the past month I have seen lots of mangroves, vines, sand snakes, cat eyed snakes, rufus beaks, etc, etc, etc still coming in.

I am not aware of a change but it could be that you now need the permits for venomous species if you want to be an importer for rear fanged. That is only speculation but it deffinitely would hamper the efforts of some of the small timers.

Next I advise anyone thinking about a mangrove to experience one first. Find an owner and go deal with it. Then know you are still rolling the dice, my mangrove was a psycopath.

We built the most beautiful viv for him and wanted him to be our true display animal. The jerk smacked the glass all the time, cats walk by - smack - you walk by - smack, sometimes we would just be sitting 10 feet away - smack.

Cage maintaince was a nightmare! He would charge the opening and had to be removed with a hook and clamp to do any maintaince at all. I had a friend that doted on him, wanted him, had to have one SOMEDAY.

Last summer SOMEDAY became TODAY. I had just had enough after 18 months of work and all that happened is my mean snake got meaner and bigger. One phone call and now he is my buddies problem. My buddie is the classic batchlor and has him in a room that is just for snakes, says he is doing better with out the foot traffic.

Still of course the snake has tagged him and swelled up his hand twice since June. Better my butt.

Now I know my snake is the extreme just be aware there are a lot of others in this niche that are placid animals.

False waters are almost never mean unless you buy an adult that was not handled. Get a baby and handle it and it should do very well. I have one almost 8 feet who is puppy dog tame.

Cateyed Snakes, Neil and Dave Ford breed them and they sell for just under a hundred bucks. The only reports of anyone being bit were some Japanese guys doing some type of research. They tried to "tie a string to the snakes tail" and got bit good. Two days later, different snake, same thing, another bite. Both got big swelled up hands but little more. The conclusion of that report was basicly that "cat eyed snakes are relecutant to bite unless they are subdued and their subcadual region is manipulated". So I guess caution should be used probing them.

Vine snakes seem to come in in various species a lot. Take some work but once settled they are great and I have seen totaly wild ones take to captivity pretty fast.

I don't keep hots due to personal limations and the number of kids in my home on a given day. I did foster two copperheads for a while though and let me say they were a LOT EASIER to deal with, (with hooks, etc) then my mangrove was. Attitude is one thing, but mine was like a black racer on a bad day, on crack cocain and meth with moderate venom and more size.:rolleye2:

Not cool!

that picture is AWESOME!

Thank you so much for all of that. I kept some type of sand snake(dont know what kind since it was sent to me as the wrong snake) and it deffently had atitude. He would try and bite me through the cage.

PF,

Did it look anything like this,

http://www.thekruger.com/shingwedzi/sandsnake.jpg

If so it was a striped Bellied sand snake, probally the most common import. They do vary in color and pattern a bit.

They are also kind of nippy at first if they are WC but tend to calm down quite easily and can even be handled as this one is. They are generaly considered harmless but I would deffinitely not let one chew on you.

What ever their venom it sure puts a gecko out pretty quick! :snake2:

It looked like that but mines body was really thick. When I gave it a rat pup, it bit and held for maybe 5 seconds and then let go, it was dead in about 3 to 4 minutes and then the snake came back and ate it maybe 10 minutes later.