Drymarchon pictures
 

Just looking to see whether there's interest in sharing some pics and stories of Drymarchon at this forum?

About how much does he/she eat and how often?

Very nice looking snake.

Are you able to let em fun free without fear of running off? I hear they are pretty damn fast.

I have 4; two are 2012 red throats, two are 2013 all-blacks.

He's not really running free; he's just out for a well-supervised outing. They are not nearly as fast as, say, a Whipsnake (3-4 mph).....which is WAY slower than a Black Mamba (10mph)

Besides, snakes "flee" when they're scared, and the older two snakes are not scared of anything.... although you'll note the neck is slightly puffed up, in reaction to the cat. They know each other fairly well by now, although with close supervision, and no contact.

All the snakes eat as much as I can convince them to eat, generally once a week. The '12 male in the top 3 pictures ate 3 adult mice last Saturday, the '13 all black boy in the last picture ate 4 hopper mice.

Chris,
Those are some beautiful animals. Particularly the red chin in photo 2. I also have one that prefers to eat just once a week. Not a big deal. Like yours, he eats a lot once a week. In general, my females seem to eat more frequently than the boys. Likely related to reproduction. Brutosky said females reproduce best at around 1800 grams. I have a couple that are larger than that, but I am hesitant to breed until they are a year older.
Tim

Thanks, Tim!

They're such magnificent snakes -- as you obviously know well.

Now that the older pair is of sufficient size to engender some respect from my cats, I'm slowly letting them get to know each other. The cats moved with me, from Maui, almost 2 years ago...so they'd never seen snakes before.

Last year, I borrowed a local 6 foot Black Rat Snake from the wild (my driveway) to teach my cats to stay away from snakes. (I don't bother using head restraint for any wild colubrid, and I almost never get bitten -- but a big rat snake sure puts on a great show for cats! (After all, we have copperheads and timber rattlers here, and my cats needed a bit of appropriate fear)

Decades ago, I always had dozens and dozens of snakes at any one time -- my (Sewanee, TN) High School yearbook pictures showed me with ~20 snakes around my neck. Now, I have no plans to have anything but Drymarchon.

Glad to know there's a fellow couperi enthusiast nearby...I was beginning to think they were all in California!

All the best!
Chris Powell

Chris,
you may wish to check out the Drymarchon Enthusiast page on FB
Also East Coast Drymarchon page on FB.
They are much more active sites.
Tim

Thanks, Tim. I registered at Easy Coast Drymarchon, then even brought myself to visit the facebook page for a bit. But I really am not a facebook kind of person, I'm afraid. I did see your lovely '13 all-black, and damn, he's just enormous, compared to my '13s!

Today didn't help any, either....I defrosted eight mice of various sizes, and 2 rats....and only one snake wanted to eat at all, and he only took 1 rat! What a waste! Although the house is warm, I think they somehow all knew it was 40 degrees outside!

Chris

Beautiful snakes. Wishlist....someday!

I figured some of you Drymarchon guys might like to see a Central FL wild couperi as found en situ.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to see one in the wild.!