Xeno eating his first RAT! WOO!
 

I was hesitant to try this guy on rats, only because... i wasnt sure he'd eat them, and i didnt want to throw him off feed! So i was just feeding him a bunch of mice at a time. Today i figured id give it a shot, and toss him a nice medium sized rat.

He apparently has gotten comfortable enough with living here, that he even didnt wait for me to put his tub back into the rack. I put the lid on, and got to watch him IMMEDIATELY strike and constrict!

Im officially happy to say, I think hes doing absolutely splendidly for me, and i think from here on out, it should be smooth sailing with this feller!!!

http://pics.livejournal.com/mooingtricycle/pic/0013z1cw

That is SOOOO COOOOOL!!!!

So, is there a captive breeding program in his future?

I plan on getting him a girlfriend at some point! :)

Definitely though. These guys are seriously way too cool to NOT try for more!:thumbsup:

*PSSSSST* hey buddy.. your doing it wrong.

LOL

I am guessing he figured out what end to start at? LOL

Congrats Alicia. :thumbsup:

LOL yes he was killing there, so i had to snap the shot quick!

i am just getting into the non-boid thing, what exactly is he. i am assuming some type of colubrid due to constricting??

Hes a Sunbeam Snake, Better known as Xenopeltis unicolor.

Theyre a southeast Asian colubrid, that loves high humidity and deep burrowing substrate, and as little contact with YOU as you can manage :D Otherwise, theyre awesome snakes, and actually pretty simple to care for if you can keep up with your husbandry.

Nearly ALL of the captive population of these animals are wild caught. They are very very rarely bred in captivity, but were getting there, more people are taking an interest in them it seems, which is a good thing.

If you decide you want one, get a FEEDING animal, and get it dewormed as well. ( they will come in with parasites, i guarantee it )

they look really interesting, what are their lenths and how fast to they grow. my fwc loves to burrow, luckily, dont really need to keep the ambient temps of her cage real high, due to she loves to be either burrowed in substrate or she is swimming in her water

Technically, they're not colubrids, but members of their own family, Xenopeltidae. Because they're such an obscure little group of snakes, they aren't always incorporated into studies, but they universally winds up near pythons, though their morphology is substantially more primitive in many ways.

While it's not very technically correct, the best thing to call them would be "primitive snakes".