Any Mandarin Ratsnake keepers/breeders? Questions.

[Charis]

I'm finding a fair amount of differing info on the 'net for these. We actually have one new female hatchling that was a surprise find at the last reptile expo. Normally they aren't available locally and while one was on our wanted list, we weren't expecting to get one right then. I'd researched them a good bit over a year ago but had forgotten most of what I'd read. Anyway, I just read one care sheet to refresh my memory when setting up her tank. She is thriving, eating regular, shedding and growing like a weed. But my husband and I are wanting to get into breeding snakes, in a small way, with a few carefully chosen species. We've decided on a pair of Mandarins and a pair of Thai Bamboo, or p.coxi Ratsnakes so far for sure. But now I've been doing a bunch of reading on care and breeding of Mandarins and getting two different opinions on their care. Some say to treat them more like the coxi, room temp and very high humidity, others more like corns or kings, warm sides of 85-90 and just a humid hide. Incidentally, this is how our one Mandarin is setup. I was wondering what any keepers on here do for their Mandarins?

[Jlassiter]

I have kept only a few mandarins and here's what is good for most colubrids as I keep them all similar with success.

If a thermal and humidity gradient is provided then the snake will choose what temp he wants to be and what amount of moisture it wants.

Keep the enclosure at room temperature (72f or so) and provide a warm spot with back or belly heat. Make the substrate deep so that there are plenty of hides as well as a top to bottom thermal gradient. The deep Aspen also helps isolate the warm spot from the cool room. Place a tub of moist sphagnum moss in the enclosure in a manner in which it too has a portion near the heat and a portion near the cool end. Then keep it on a natural light cycle, brumate, feed and breed....

[Charis]

I just spent some time Googling the average temps and humidity of the Mandarin Ratsnake's range and have come up with a bit of a theory as to the difference in the care sheets. It was confusing me because some were saying that they should not get much hotter than 80 degrees, like the coxi but not stressing that part as much for the Mandarn. Others were saying that they needed a 85-90 degree hot spot. After checking the area temps, the Mandarin occupies a very large range of territory and in some parts of it, they almost never experience temps above 80 degrees. In other areas it gets into the 90s fairly regularly. The first WC Mandarins were apparently very hard to keep alive. I'm guessing that the success of some keepers using certain temperatures with the WC ones probably had a good bit to do with what area they had been caught in. That could maybe account for the difference in the reccomended temperatures?

[StudentoReptile]

I believe SSShane has kept Mandarins at some point. Dunno if he still does.