MANGROVE SNAKE AND FALSE WATER COBRA - HELP NEEDED

Hi i live in paris - am getting these two beauties in about 2 month and a half
i have pick of the importations -
70 cb fwc - hydrodynastes giga between 1- 3 ft or 5 4ft to 7ft all well behaved
and the mangroves - boiga dendrophillia - are wc adults 90% bitey 10% behaved - their sizes range between 2ft - 7ft
none are bad feeders they all strike feed unassisted

i have been looking everywhere - does anyone have a care sheet for these - or any experiences with theirs - my first time with these spieces any detailed info would be great any info at all would be welcome!!!


i am not a child i am 22 - i know what i am doing and have kept over 60 spieces of snake over 10 years
my feonce will be helping me out - he has experience with animals such as gaboon vipers, boomslang and monacled cobra -
i understand fully these are venomous neurotoxic snakes and have been considering them and researching them for over 6 months now considering them
i know mangroves grow up to 9FT and fwc up to 2m
our laws are alot less relaxed than the in the states and we have a full license to keep them or if we chose to alot more toxic snakes !!!

please send any info you know to [email protected]
and anyone that owns these snakes please ad me to msn -
do not pm me i read emails alot more

FWCs will get 3m or more.
The following is a care rough caresheet I wrote for them.


The biggest I’ve had were over 8 ft. and about as thick as my wrist. They hatch out 12 to 18 inches in length. I start them on pinky mice when possible but use goldfish if necessary. They will also eat birds of appropriate size and I have seen them eating snake eggs, but have only seen this in one adult. My guess is they would also eat larger fish and I will most likely experiment with that this year.

When handled regularly they will remain quite tame. If not handled regularly, you’ll have LOTS of fun. They are fast fast fast.

I start them in small plastic containers and move them up to larger and larger plastic containers as necessary. I have kept them in tanks and wood cages with no discernable differences in attitude or behavior. If given room they will climb quite a bit.

A variety of beddings are fine for these snakes. I’ve used pine shavings, sani-chips, newspaper, and aspen. I’ve never really noticed any difference as far as one being better than another EXCEPT that newspaper needs changing more often and these guys defecate often and in large quantities.

They like to burrow into the bedding, especially when young, so make sure you either have deep enough bedding or some sort of hide. These guys are pretty calm in almost any circumstance too. They will come out and look around even when there is activity in the room. They’re site hunters and their vision is acute.

As far as humidity, I don’t do anything special and it gets pretty dry here, especially in the summer. I do supply a bowl big enough for the snake to soak in and all the adults use it but they also all spend goodly amounts of time out of the water.

I have experimented over the years and kept some individuals in very wet conditions. There seemed no real difference other than the wet bedding snakes tended to burrow more. It may have just been individual quirks though as I did not try it with too many. At least not intentionally. There have been instances of a water bowl being turned over and my not knowing it for several days, but still no ill affects that I saw. No belly blisters or anything.

I put the girls with the boys starting in early Jan. and have had them breed through May. I’ve kept 2 girls with 1 male with no problem but babies will eat each other. 2 years old and 4 ½ ft are minimums for breeding. I haven’t tried it with anything smaller or younger anyway. I’ve had clutches up to 16 eggs and I have heard that clutches numbering 20 or more are not uncommon. This may well be true and we’ll know as soon as my girls get big enough to bear that many. Maybe next year. Last years clutches with 5 to 6 ft females were around 14. I usually get about 90% hatch rates incubated at 80 to 84 F for 55 to 60 days.

They will become conditioned to expect food when the cage is opened if that is USUALLY what happens when the cage is opened. They seem to remember and they are fast fast fast. I do feed mine in their containers but I don’t handle them much anyway except for the male. For pets a feeding box would probably be a good idea as they are fast fast fast.

If you’ve ever kept indigos or cribos it’s pretty much the same thing.

This link will take you to a page describing what happened when one of mine bit me.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107295&highlight=false+water+cobra+bite

Your awkward attempts to be friendly are not unnoticed.