Black Ratsnake husbandry questions?

[jjhill001]

I don't know what black rat snakes others have seen but 51"x21"x14" is plenty of space for one. That's enough room for some of the average sized bull snakes and I've never seen an adult black rat bigger than that (maybe a bit longer but more slender).

I will say that your dimensions do leave something to be desired (not for lack of total space), black rats are plenty arboreal if you give them the opportunity. If you wanted a nice big display cage I'd shoot for something like 48x24x36" or 48x24x24". I think that 5 feet long is a bit overkill if you have the full 2 feet of depth to the cage.

Personally I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you kept a rat snake that has so many cool behaviors in a tub, albeit a larger one than we'd typically see. If you are very strapped for cash there is always worry about potentially not having the means to care for it in the future so do keep that in mind. If however you're just trying to add another to a collection but want the caging on the cheap I'm sure there are ways to modify the tub into something suitable.

Other than them being slightly larger than corn snakes there really isn't much different in terms of care though.