Maintaining a water snake's house. Common snake (non-venomous snake)

Oddly enough, common snake(lat. Natrix natrix) is rarely found in the collections of snake lovers. This is explained by the fact that, despite its prevalence in nature, the snake is capricious and demanding in terms of living conditions and feeding. You can’t just put this animal in a terrarium, stuff it with mice and hope that very soon the pet will grow and prosper. It really demands special approach, and in this article we will tell you how to create the best conditions for it.

Snakes are widespread throughout Europe (except for the subpolar and polar regions), as well as in southern regions Siberia and Far East. They live on the banks of bodies of water (streams, lakes, rivers), sometimes found in vegetable gardens, in basements, and less often within cities.

It’s easy to understand what exactly is in front of you: it is distinguished from the same vipers by light spots (“ears”) of orange, white, yellow flowers located on the sides of the head. The body is black, but there are specimens with brown and dark gray colors. The snake's belly is light, white, with an uneven dark stripe. Usually the length does not exceed a meter, but sometimes larger specimens are found. Males are smaller than females and have a slightly longer tail.

It belongs to non-venomous snakes. Once caught, it bites quite rarely, preferring to “flatten” its head and hiss like a viper. If the enemy is not afraid, he resorts to the following trick: he releases a few drops of a sharp-smelling, stinking liquid from the cloacal opening and hangs from his hands with a cord, pretending to be dead. If you catch a snake and place it in an apartment, at first it will put on such “performances”, but pretty soon it calms down, gets used to it and stops reacting so aggressively.

Cover the bottom of the terrarium with a layer of coconut substrate or gravel; paper is suitable as a temporary option. Under no circumstances should you use sand: small grains of sand inevitably stick to the food item when absorbing food and enter the gastrointestinal tract along with the food, which can lead to the death of the snake.

The next task is to equip the warm and cold corners. A thermal cord, lamp, and thermal mat are suitable for heating. In a warm corner, the temperature should be 30-32 degrees during the day and 20-22 degrees at night. A layer of damp sphagnum is also placed there, and on top of it is a shelter for the snake. Place another shelter (dry) in a cold corner. To keep the humidity level from falling, once a day warm water spray the terrarium, or use a humidifier, while making sure that the sphagnum moss in the warm corner is always moist. This way, your pet will not only have a place where he can warm up, but also a cool corner to relax. In addition to the above, driftwood, stones, branches, artificial plants, and other decorations can be placed in the center of the terrarium.

A UV lamp is suitable for illuminating the terrarium, but warm days you can pamper your “snake” with sunbathing. Turn off the lights at night because they sleep at night.

Another important element is a container of water, which should be placed in the dining room. The snake will drink from it, and in it it will bathe, float or lie down during molting (soak). Change the water in the container every day.

The process of feeding snakes often causes a lot of difficulties for beginners. Snakes do not eat standard food - mice - either alive or thawed. The diet of these snakes in nature includes frogs, toads, and fish, so you will have to work hard to get suitable food items for your pet. It is important to remember: the snake should be given a variety of food. In particular, it is unacceptable to feed the snake only fish, since the thiaminase enzyme contained in some types of fish can cause a lack of vitamins B, E, C and chlorine, which is responsible for the osmotic pressure of the blood. Fish food should be interspersed with feeding frogs and toads as often as possible. Please note: snakes only eat what moves; they may not even touch a stationary food object.

Snakes are fed 1-2 times a week, adults and large individuals - a little less often. Once a month, mineral supplements are added to the snake’s food (sprinkled on the food or injected directly into the food item). Sometimes mineral water is added to the drinking bowl.

An additional difficulty in keeping snakes is organizing hibernation. To do this, in the fall the lighting and heating time is reduced, bringing it from 12 to 4 hours. Snakes overwinter at a temperature of 10-12 degrees. The snake spends about 2 months in hibernation. Wintering improves activity and vitality snakes, and also promotes the reproduction of snakes.

As you can see, it is a rather problematic and troublesome snake to keep, and it will be quite difficult for a beginner to cope with its care. But if you manage to provide him with comfortable conditions, then you will have a unique chance to observe interesting and unusual pet whose beauty and grace for many years will delight you and your guests.

You will need

- spacious terrarium;
- cuvette for water;
- soil;
- driftwood for landscape decoration;
- moss;
- incandescent lamp;
- live food.

Instructions

For the snake, it is necessary to prepare a terrarium that is sufficiently spacious and high - after all, an adult individual, depending on the size, can reach a length of 1 - 1.5 m. Make sure that the terrarium is tightly closed with a mesh lid. The bottom can be covered with sand or peat. A prerequisite for a snake is the presence of a reservoir in the terrarium. The size of the reservoir should be such that it can curl up there entirely. Place one or two pieces of driftwood in the terrarium, on which your pet can climb in the same way as he would do. Try to arrange them so that the snake can use them as a shelter. Areas lined with moss will also be a pleasant addition to the landscape - it will help retain moisture that is comfortable for the snake.

Install an incandescent lamp above the terrarium, preferably with a mirror reflector. This will allow the snake to receive enough light and heat even on rainy days. Remember also that it is better to place the terrarium in the sunniest part of the room. Since it is not so easy to create a safe environment for a snake, it is better not to allow him to plunge into this state. Hibernation can be avoided by providing the snake with sufficient heat, light and live food throughout the year.

One of the peculiarities of keeping snakes is that they need live, moving food. It can be frogs, tadpoles, and small fish for the snake. As a last resort, if in winter it is not possible to get live food, the snake can be accustomed to frozen food. But then the food will have to be put into the snake’s mouth by force, since it will not perceive motionless pieces of meat or fish as food. This method of feeding can cause injury to the snake due to the fragility of its jaws. The snake needs to be fed approximately once every three days.

If he is losing mobility, and his coat is losing color and shine, he may be about to shed. It is important not to confuse this condition with a disease. Another sign that a snake is about to shed is its desire to stay in the water as long and as often as possible. Perhaps you will be able to see how the snake gets out of its old skin. After molting, your pet will appear with fresh scales, bright and shiny. Old skins can be preserved by observing the growth dynamics of the grass snake.

The common snake and the maintenance of the snake at home are described in this material. The common snake is the most common type of snake. They live almost throughout the entire territory of Eurasia. They belong to the family of colubrids. poisonous snakes. They are distinguished from others by their “yellow ears”. These are pronounced marks on the head yellow, occasionally orange.

Females are larger than males and can reach a length of 1.5 meters. You can distinguish the sex of snakes by the size of their tail. In males it is long with a thickening at the base. In females, the tail is much shorter and does not have thickenings and is cone-shaped. They feed mainly on frogs, rodents and rarely fish.

Storks and others pose a danger to grass snakes birds of prey. They are aggressive and run away at the sight of a person. Once in the hands, they hiss and wriggle in rings, after which they emit a smell that discourages the appetite of many animals. They can swim well and can stay underwater for about half an hour.

Their mating season begins in April. From June to August, female snakes look for a place to lay eggs (warm and humid places are suitable). Places such as humus piles, fallen leaves, and damp moss are also suitable.

The winter, starting in November, is spent in burrows and crevices.

They tolerate life well in captivity and will quickly become tamed. How to meet a snake today pet no longer uncommon.

A pond needs a container where the animal can swim freely. This is especially necessary during the molting period. Pebbles or sphagnum moss are suitable for the soil.

An ordinary snake and keeping a snake at home - a terrarium for snakes

There must be a shelter in the terrarium where it can sleep. Pieces of bark, etc. are suitable for this. Driftwood, branches, houses, etc. are suitable as decoration.

To maintain optimal humidity, spray with water once a day. Such a terrarium should have two zones: wet and dry. Moist soil requires the presence of moss and plants.

There must also be thermal and cold zone. In a warm zone, place a shelter with moss. Temperature - from 30 to 35 degrees during the day, at night - from 20 to 22 degrees.

To maintain the optimal temperature, you can use thermal mats or thermal cords. In warm areas, heat lamps can be used. The lamp is suitable from 40 to 60 W with mirror coating. In addition to such lamps, you need to place an ultraviolet lamp. To do this, you need to use Repti Glo 5.0 lamps, in which the ultraviolet content is most suitable for keeping such an animal.

The snake's diet includes amphibians (fish, lizards, frogs). In captivity, it is also necessary to provide the pet with such food. You need to feed once every 5-7 days. During this time, his body will digest the food, and the animal will get hungry.

It is advisable to add specialized fortified supplements to regular food. It will be useful to teach your snake to eat fish fillets, but you should not completely switch to such food. Food for them should be lively and varied. They drink from a pond, so you need to keep it clean and change the water regularly.

Snakes get used to humans quite quickly. Over time, they become less aggressive towards humans. But at first they may even bite, but they do this extremely rarely.

You should not constantly carry it in your arms; it will be stressful for the snake. The first step is to consider the interests of your pet.

Create everything necessary conditions for living snakes, and then it will please you too!

Video is too ordinary

Canaries love to swim. Bathing cleanses the skin and strengthens the plumage. Bathing water should be room temperature. The bathing suit is attached to the outside of the door so that water does not enter the cage. After each bathing, the bathing suit is removed and the doors are closed. Bathing suits should be washed daily. Canaries must be taught to bathe with early age, i.e. from the moment they are separated from the female - after 30-35 days of age.

After disinfection, the cage and equipment must be thoroughly rinsed again, scalded, wiped and dried. Dry chamomile is poured under the tray and inserted into its original place. Pour clean, dry river sand and a thin layer of crushed eggshells from a boiled egg onto the tray (bottom of the cage). Sand and eggshell serve as mineral nutrition for poultry, maintain its health and promote digestion. After this, feed is poured into the feeders and placed at the feeding site.

Drinking water should be at room temperature. It is poured into a small glass or porcelain dish (height 3-4 cm) and placed on the bottom of the cage in a place convenient for the bird to drink. Between the rods of the cage you can insert small feeders in the form of a thimble or a plastic plug for periodic feeding with honey, grated carrots, and yolk in addition to the main food.

The cage is placed in a well-lit place, but not in the sun, not on a window or in a draft. If the room is closed, you can and should let the bird fly. At first 5-10 minutes, and then up to 40-45 minutes. You can train a bird to sit on your hand or shoulder, but this requires a lot of patience. You need to approach cages with canaries in such a way that the birds see you: by talking to them in an even, gentle voice, you will win the bird’s trust, you can even teach them to sit on your hand.

Selection

Canaries have been breeding in cages for hundreds of years. Organism house canary very plastic. By changing feeding conditions, you can force the canary to change the color of its plumage.

In their homeland, under natural conditions, the breeding season of wild canaries begins in the 2nd half of March. Best time for mating and breeding chicks in our conditions - spring (March, April, May). During this period there is more daylight, and the female can feed the chicks longer. To receive good offspring It is necessary to carefully select a male and a female. The male must be large, with interesting song, beautiful plumage, active. Age - at least 1 year. The female must also have the appropriate qualities. It is advisable to select pairs of males from one and a half to two years old and even up to five years, and females from 11 months to three to four years. The coloration of the offspring is influenced by both sires, while vocal qualities, song sensitivity and hearing are influenced by the male. This should also be taken into account when selecting a pair.

Some amateur canary breeders practice breeding one male with two or three females and at the same time get normal litters, but this requires great experience. A more accessible method is to breed one male with one female. Before mating, a cage with a male and a cage with a female are placed next to each other so that the birds see each other and begin to show mutual interest. During this period, the male is given soft food in addition to grain every day for 5-6 days. Females also increase their diet. Birds ready to mate are placed in one cage. The male is placed first, and after a day or two the female is placed next to him. By this time, the male will get used to the new environment. The female, released to the male, quickly mates with him and begins building a nest. From the beginning of mating and construction of the nest to the laying of the first egg, three to ten days pass.

The mating cage can be regular or slightly larger. The nest can be hung in the corner of the cage from the inside or outside, in a quiet place. In nature, canaries have a cup-shaped nest, and therefore amateur canary breeders make an artificial nest or nest base of the same shape, usually made of clothesline.

So that the female can calmly build a nest, she needs to place in the cage pieces of cut cotton or linen threads 2-3 cm in size, small pieces of linen or cotton fabric and even well-dried small hay. Within 6-7 days, the female builds a nest, after which she begins to lay eggs. As soon as the first egg is laid, it is necessary to remove the remaining building materials, add fresh sand, and clean the cage from accumulated construction waste. This is done because sometimes the female continues to build the nest and breaks the egg in the process. You should not change the location of the nest or rearrange the cage after the female has laid an egg and especially after the chick or full brood has emerged. If there is an extreme need for this, it must be done very carefully and only at night. There were cases when the female left the nest and stopped feeding the chicks. Egg laying can last 4-6 days. After the female lays 3-4 eggs, the male is removed from the cage, since the female herself can feed the chicks. But you can leave the male, and he will actively help the female in hatching and feeding the chicks.

The female canary incubates the chicks for 13 days. Males also take part in incubating the eggs. At the moment when the female goes to feed, he replaces her. On the 14th day, the chicks hatch from the eggs. 3-4 hours after the chicks hatch, the female begins to feed them. Both parents also feed the chicks from their beaks. There are cases when the male destroys the nest, throws out eggs and even chicks. Such a male must be removed immediately. The main thing is that there is always grain soft food in the feeders. At this time, in addition to the grain mixture, the female is given soft food - a mass of boiled eggs with crushed breadcrumbs.

The cubs that fly away from the nest initially seem clumsy and inept. On the 24-28th day after hatching, the chicks separated from their parents are good at finding and eating soft and grain food. Young male canaries begin to sing (chirp) on the 35-37th day after leaving the nest. The sounds made by a young male are deep, long and continuous. The “singing” of a young female is higher-pitched, short-lived and abrupt, with long pauses. This period of “singing” in young birds is very short: 10-12 days before the start of molting. During the period of maturation, it is necessary to determine the sex of the birds. Males usually begin to chirp, puffing out their crops, and females make a “tiv-tiv” sound. Identified males need to be placed, each in a separate cage, and females can be kept together in one cage. Young males at the age of 5-6 months begin to sing in an incomplete and fragile voice, and by 8-9 months they reach a full voice. In a good canary, the song is fully strengthened only by the age of two.

Large bird. Length up to 65 cm. Wingspan - 1.2-1.5 meters. Weight 0.8-1.5 kg. Painted completely black with a metallic sheen. The feathers of the crop are elongated, lanceolate. Young birds are matte black. The colors of the male and female are the same. The tail is wedge-shaped, unlike the crow's.

The snake family has about two thousand species. The most common of them are water and ordinary (or land). To keep a pet snake, you need to create all the conditions for its life. An amateur serpentologist should familiarize himself not only with the rules of keeping and breeding, but also with the technique of feeding the snake. Often chosen for keeping in captivity tiger snake, which has an interesting, multi-colored ring color. So what is he like, a domesticated one, what kind of approach and maintenance does he require?

Terrarium for snake

If the desire to keep a pet snake does not leave you, first of all you should acquire a spacious terrarium, most of which will be occupied by a swimming pool. A swimming pool is an essential attribute for a pet reptile. It should not be too small in size, minimum 50x40x40 cm. Also, the pond should not be cramped so that the pet can easily take a bath in it.

The terrarium must be tightly closed with a net, otherwise the pet snake may escape from its house. It is recommended to lay the bottom of the container with moisture-retaining peat or sand.

In addition to the main soil, a small part is lined with wet moss so that the snake can hide in it. Also placed in the terrarium:

various driftwood,
decorative stones,
shelters made of strong branches or bark, between which the snake will crawl.

One more important nuance is to maintain temperature balance. In one corner it should be slightly raised. To do this, a special warming chamber is placed, and a stone is placed under it, on which the snake will warm itself. It is also recommended to place the area with damp moss in a warm corner. During the day, the temperature in this area should not be below 33 degrees.

In addition to the heating zone, there should also be a cool place. It is best if it comes with shelter. The temperature in this area should not exceed 23 degrees. During the daytime, the entire remaining part of the terrarium should be maintained within 22-27 degrees. At night, heating and lighting are turned off, since the pet snake is only awake during the day, and at night it rests in its shelter.

It is very important to properly maintain not only the temperature but also the humidity inside the snake house. This requires constant spraying of soil and moss with water. It will also be important, although in the summer you can get by with sunbathing.

Feeding

A novice serpentologist should first familiarize himself with what can be fed to snakes at home. A delicacy for aquatic reptiles are:

frogs
small live fish.

Land breeds prefer to eat mice. In ancient times, many villagers kept snakes in their homes as a rodent hunter.

Snakes quickly adapt to captivity, begin to eat the food given to them, and soon they are completely tamed and become completely domesticated.

Snake food can be purchased at any pet store, but you should not buy it at the poultry market, as there is high risk infect your pet with helminths.

The snake needs to be fed twice a week. The frogs it feeds on should be medium sized to avoid clogging digestive tract, which can cause your pet to die. For a snake thirteen centimeters long, one meal requires a four-centimeter frog, or two very small ones. You can feed snakes with both live and defrosted food. However, it is often not worth giving him defrosted fish. He can handle live feeding himself, but he will have to take the defrosted food with tweezers and gently rock it to the pet. Snakes only respond to movement and will not eat stationary food. Snakes also require a lot of drinking water.

Shedding

The owner of a pet snake must be prepared for the pet's annual molting period. The main sign of the approach of this period is the clouding of the reptile’s eyes. She begins to see poorly due to dead scales in her eyes. During this period of time, the snake can be easily captured on camera without causing inconvenience or damage to its health. Typically, photo flash is harmful to reptiles. But we should not forget about the increased aggressiveness of reptiles during this period. They can confuse your hand with an enemy or food and bite, so a novice snake lover needs to be extremely careful.

Land and aquatic species are not poisonous, but inflammation may occur after a bite. If suddenly a bite occurs, the wound must be spread apart so that the blood can drain.

The pet may not completely replace the entire skin with a new one. If scraps of rags appear on the snake’s skin, this is a reason to be wary. Usually the skin hangs in rags if the owner does not properly care for his pet. In this case, the reptile needs to be helped to shed:

A warm bath is made in which the snake is placed.
As soon as the skin gets wet, remove it with gentle rotating movements.
If the skin near the eyes is difficult to remove, you should use tweezers and carefully remove it.

Wintering

By maintaining regular nutrition, your pet snake does not need to spend the winter, especially if it is still very young. However, if during the winter he refuses to eat, or you plan to prepare your pet for breeding, you definitely need to arrange hibernation, while observing a list of certain rules.

The reptile must be placed in a well-ventilated cage, protected from light, after filling it with sphagnum moss.
The temperature should range from approximately 6 to 9 degrees.
Over the course of two weeks, the temperature needs to be gradually reduced, be sure to make sure in advance is that the reptile has completely digested the last food it consumed.

In the process of removing the pet from the winter, on the contrary, the temperature gradually rises.
To maintain moisture in the cage, you should periodically spray the soil with water.

In normal conditions, wintering lasts about two months.

It is definitely worth considering that in home conditions there is a high risk of losing a pet when putting it into hibernation. It will be much easier to keep a tropical snake at home, which in natural conditions never hibernates.