Hot Herps

[olivehydra]

Question for the brave herpers with elapids.... Alot of vens in the wild will strike and release prey items. To those of you who keep vens and feed dead prey, is this still the case?? I have often wondered as "most" constrictors still give the obligatory "squeeze" to dead prey, and was wondering if vens exhibit wild tendancies in their feeding habits as well.
Thanks in advance

[Brodie_W]

Yes it is just the same as pythons. There are some species that snap and release and some that just bite and hold on. Adders will still cadaul lure too!

Its Pretty cool

[reptililian]

Cadaul lure? Is that where they do the little wriggly thing with their tail?

[Brodie_W]

Yeah, Its suprisingly realistic too. If I saw that wriggling atop some leaves in the bush I would probably assume it was a demented catterpiller

[olivehydra]

Cheers Brodie, out of interest what do you keep / or have kept in the way of vens? Also I get a little confused with some of your posts regarding your location. Are you in Darwin or elswhere? Dont answer if you dont want, I'm just a nosey parker :wink: Just noticed some of your Fogg Dam pics recently (awsome btw), somewhere I've always wanted to visit.
Cheers.
While I'm playing spanish inquisition, what are your thoughts on free handling vens? (captive)

[africancichlidau]

OliveH, one question, throughout your posts in this thread you refer to Vens yet in the title you use that horrible yankee term "HOT" herps. Why is that?

[olivehydra]

Originally Posted by africancichlidau

OliveH, one question, throughout your posts in this thread you refer to Vens yet in the title you use that horrible yankee term "HOT" herps. Why is that?

I recently took delivery of a heap of yank herp magazines, and I suppose something must have rubbed off I was considering using the word poisonous but figured that would be just stirring :wink: It is interesting however that they seem to have a different ranking of toxicity than us, they list the eastern brown ahead of taipan and tiger?(based on LD50).
But if your asking if I'm a yank, the answer is a definite NO :wink:

[Brodie_W]

Hi Olive,

I currently dont keep anything ven, as to get my ven licence renewed i have to get a first air cert, so i wont have anything for another week or so. But I have kept:

Inland Taipans, western browns, both species of black whip snakes, three species of adder, pale headed snakes, small eyed snakes, Mulga Snakes, Pygmy mulgas and a bunch of the smaller things like moon snakes and a couple of the simoselaps. I have kept a few other things for breif periods of time as well.

I am currently in Darwin but do travel around quite a bit in search of herps!

Generally I am against freehandling elapids. Ive done it before, and I think most ven keepers have. But its not something I'd do again. If people want to do it, well it is their own choice! I just hope they dont cop a bad bite! Having said that though, there are a few people around who can freehandle vens very safely. The only time I would call someone stupid for doing it is if they are an inexperienced keeper. How the hell is someone who has kept rbbs for 6 months going to know when the snake is likely to strike, etc. Its people like that, that anger me. because obviously when the story hits the newspapers, it doesnt help the image of the snake too much!

PS - Please ignore all spelling mistakes and grammatical (is that even a word..?) errors... Its late!

[PilbaraPythons]

Olivehydra
Back to your original question, Quote: A lot of vens in the wild will strike and release prey items. To those of you who keep vens and feed dead prey, is this still the case??

If you feed dead prey to elapids that originally came from the wild, in most cases those elapids will become a lot less vigorous it their desire to strike. So yes they often do change their feeding behavior in captivity. Many over time get so used to dead food that they will not strike at all and just casually begin to consume the prey item just like your average python. This is just how you want to end up having your elapids for safety reasons. I have however, seen the total reverse happen with a beautiful eastern brown snake that was easy to free handle. This snake would eat slowly and casually from tongs when ever he was removed and placed in a garbage bin for feeding. After a complete clown ended up with it and he started feeding it live food again, it reverted back to striking and became a much more dangerous reptile for him to deal with. This particular clown ended up receiving a very serious bite from another potentially dangerous elapid, and yes , while he was feeding it live prey.

[Greebo]

This is why clowns should not own venemous snakes.

[pike1]

Olive, the eastern brown is ahead of the taipan and tiger snake in LD50 here as well. I would rather be bitten by a taipan or tiger than a brown.

[TrueBlue]

Yeah, as dave said most ven herps settle down in captivity and get accustomed to a feeding program. Alot of bite and release animals will bite and eat and the bite and hang on,ers will do the same, although some will always think they are tough and grab and death roll etc.
Im very guilty of free handling vens in the past and have done it with many different snakes, mind you most of them Id breed and new the animals intimitly, These include both taipans, eastern brown(only one particular animal), mulgas, spotted blacks, redbellied blacks, tigers, copperheads, even had a few free handleable roughies.

[olivehydra]

Originally Posted by pike1

Olive, the eastern brown is ahead of the taipan and tiger snake in LD50 here as well. I would rather be bitten by a taipan or tiger than a brown.

I wasnt sure but just looked it up in Shines, and he puts the eastern brown way down on the list (LD50 4000), tiger (15000), taipan (95000) even mulga is ahead of brown at 5000, (due to yeild I suppose?). Fairly old book so maybe it has been revised??

Thanks to those who replied, youve sorted out my curiousity :wink:

[peterescue]

I find that most will settle into a feeding routine. Eastern Browns, Red Bellies and Tigers will take dead easily and all i need to doo is place the rodents nicely presented on a plate and they will take them.
Ive had to feed wild browns on occasion and they generally will accept it the same way. Some of my youger animals need to be coaxed but once they grab it they usually start feeding. I couple stike at it then leave it for a while.
Lumpy the tiger was a hard one as he had no iterest in dead and when he went for live he would kill it then leave it. Eventually we had to resort to force feeding. Now we are using much smaller prey otems and he swallows them himself.

[Brodie_W]

All of the elapids I have kept long term are CB. So, a question for you guys who have experience with keeping wild ones... Has anyone else noticed that after a few mon praelongus stop caudal luring, while antarticus continue to do it for much longer. Its just something one of the keepers at Taronga told me, and was wondering everyone elses opinion on it .

Cheers