Red Tail Green Rat Snake - Many Questions

[Marwan]

Hey guys,

I could use some help here. I recently volunteered to take in a red tail green rat snake. It was ordered by someone who didn't want it. I'll spare you the story of the snake as well as my story.

I am fairly experienced with snakes from corns to burms to retics but this snake's upkeep and hardiness are something i haven't tackled before.

I have read all the care sheets out there and i also watched all youtube videos pertaining to the species, at this point i'd rather just talk to someone who has some experience with asian rat snakes.

Snake basic info:
Around 5-6 feet
Wild Caught
Food offered is live small birds. One small bird every feeding.

Environment:
Long terrarium with many branches and trees
Humidity 70%-90%
Substrate is plantation soil with moss

The snake has a black scale on its nose. Maybe it rubbed it off during shipping or it was hurt somehow in the wild.

The things i need to know

Humidity
1. Does anyone have experience with reptile humidifiers. I tried one for awhile and it seems to do the job of keeping the terrarium at a 70% to 90% humidity level. Online sheets say spraying 2-4 times a day should suffice(this seems too little to me).
Tongue Behaviour
2. The snake has a peculiar behavior of touching everything with it’s tongue. It will often stick it’s head to the glass and flick its tongue out; since the head is touching the glass, the tongue comes out sideways. It even does that when it’s outside the terrarium, it enjoys touching things with it’s tongue, is this a behavior specific to this species. It seems they only drink off the walls and take time to get used to bowls, could this be what it’s doing, searching for water? Seems very unlikely.
Switching from birds to mice
3. I usually know how to scent a mouse/rat with a bird for boas and pythons, we’d often put the mouse/rat under a quail’s wing for it to smell like a bird. But with a snake like this, the birds I can get are alive and I don’t know how I can scent a mouse with those small birds and if there are any bait and switch tactics to use. Couldn’t find anything useful online.
Feeding Size
4. Feeding size, I’ve never dealt with larger colubrids. Do I follow the same rules and guides for feeding? Feeding big enough to leave a lump in the snake. Feeding a large mouse once every 10-12 days?

Sorry for the long post, any help or perhaps direction as to where I can seek some help would be appreciated.