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Keeping and behavior
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The mexican pine snake is for an beginner of snake keeping not ideal, because of it's temperatur needings and behaviour specialities. Adult deppei (captive bred) can reach 1,8m and need a little more space than most of the jani. In there should be some hiding places and, if possible, a climbing branch. My animals seldom took a bath, but I give them a bathbowl, in wich one deppei will fit, if nessecary.
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The preferd temperatures of the mexican pine is aprox. 24-26°C. Higher temperatures they don't like so much. The snakes then sometimes reguriate the food and become highly nervous. They are animals from the mountain landscapes. The animals can live with other deppei or other species normaly without problems - if it is stress free. Til now I handled one wild caught and several captive bred animals in all ages. All were calm and no one of them tried to bite. Wild caught animals are a little difficult to keep and are more stressy.
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Diet
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My animals take several sorts of rodents as food. It's normaly the same, wether the food is alive, fresh dead or thawned frost food. Mostly they get defrosted mice and small rats.
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Hibernation
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You should offer them a 2-4month long hibernation periode at 5-15°C. They are bred seldomly, but I never heard about a fertil clutch without a hibernation. |
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Propagation and breeding |
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After the hibernation the snakes eat some times and they get in mating mood. After the succsessful mating the eggs grow for 6-8 weeks in the body of the female. Some days after the pre egg laying shed it lay a cluch of eggs. The parents of my animal have aprox. 1,8m in lenght and laid a clutch of 13 eggs. From my snakes I know clutches of 5-8 eggs. After a medium incubation period of about 65-67 days the snakes begin to hatch. |
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Young snakes |
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After hatching the small mexican pines have a lenght of 35 to 45 cm and are a little bit stonger than most jani. The ground color is normaly a grey brown. Silver ground colored animals were bred, too. On the back there are clearly brown-black colored saddle markings, seldomly striped animals are bred. The coloration is a little pale, but in the second year of growth they become more colorful.The first food of my snakes are defrosted some days old mice. Non feeders are possible and need an intensive care. The further keeping can be without problems, when you keep the animal stress poor and the temperatures don’t get too high. The growth rate of the mexican pine snakes depends mostly on health factors of the snakes. Some of them can eat a lot of food and grow quickly. Other eat less or have problems, if they eat to much and so they grow slowlier.
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Maturity and lifespan
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Depending on amount of food and the biological possibilitis of the animals the maturity begins in the 2nd or 3rd year. In normal cases the snakes become aprox. 15 years old or a little more.
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My animals |
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I have a C.B. breeding pair of the year 2000. |
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Biology in Habitat |
