information on feeding and housing needed.

I have a young gopher snake, it was caught in the wild in Frezno, California and im in Washington (cold). Currently the snake is about 5 weeks old, 11"-12". and was told it has been fed twice so far, 2 pinky's every week. to me it looks rather small, but looks to be in good health, no mites or any thing and is going to the bathroom good.


I have it in an acrylic cage that's measurements are 29"L, 12"W, 12"H I believe it comes out to 5 gallons? I washed the tank out with a bleach/water mix, so slight you couldn't smell the bleach and then washed it out, washed the snake in slightly warm water and then put it in the tank with shreaded news paper, a shoebox with a hole in it full of shreaded newspaper, heat rock, and water bowl. Seems to be doing good so far, not sure on the temp in the tank, it seems the snake does not like to be around the heat rock as he keeps going inside the box and he feels semi-cold. Tommorrow I will be buying a heatpad to put under neath the tank. Any reccomendations? Also I was told that this snake does not need lighting besides what the room provides is this true?

Next i'm not sure how much I should be feeding this, is it ok to feed two pinky's a week? I think it has been fed one fuzzy and took it fine, though not certain. Thanks a lot! ~ Joe. by the way, this is not my first snake, a few years ago my father owned a burmese python and two bp's and a cali-kingsnake. Fun until mom forced sale .

Ok well, last time it was fed was monday of last week.. but that was by my dads sister in california. Now its a 29"L, 12"W, 12"H with "Pets preference 100% newspaper pebbles type things, a exo-terra heater (mounted under neath the tank), i have a crawl box, a tube going downward into the bedding, and a fresh bowl of water. Currently the top of the bedding is about 71.5 F but its about 75-79 degrees F closer to the bottom of the tank.

This snake seems VERY agressive, at first it would let you hold it, etc.. but now since it has heat it is striking at any sight of me, and doesnt seem to be hungry (has 2 pinky's in the cage currently) I don't have much of a clue as to why, or how to get it to eat.. Maybe its not hungry yet and I should wait over the weekend? Any one know how long the pinky's will live or should i put them in a zip-lock and freeze them to later thaw them out? I also have a towel over one side of the tank to keep in the heat and also to keep him from seeing me, though he's hiding in the crawl box most of the time.

and here's the reading of the temperature currently (its 8:05 PM) I am thinking about also getting a hooded light for it also, would this help to raise the heat during the day?