African house snakes

[TRD]

Nice! Love the eyes, I have a thing for cateyes

[Macropodus]

Originally Posted by Elenyve

I try to find a Aurora as really beautiful but i live in Malta and it's really difficult to find...

They are also difficult to find (and expensive) in USA. A pair just sold for USD $1,000 and that was the only 1 the dealer made available. Copy/paste this link: faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=611464

Originally Posted by Captain837

... difficulty in getting the babies to eat...

Did you mean difficulty in obtaining appropriately sized live rodents? Anybody seriously interested in breeding African House Snakes should also be seriously interested in having enough breeding colonies of mice to produce a steady supply of pinkies, preferably 1 day old pinkies. Have you had trouble getting hatchlings to eat those?

[Primal Rage]

I wonder who is getting that pair? Here are a couple pics of my sub adult female aurora.

[Macropodus]

Oh it's you? Congrats! Brilliant orange stripe on olive background. Did you get the male too? She looks similar to the olive colored African House Snakes we saw at an expo last weekend in Hamburg, PA, but of course those didn't have the telltale orange stripe. Will you be breeding her? breeding mice?

[Primal Rage]

Yes sir! No, I just got the pair. Hopefully the male will be breeding size in 2 years and can pair him with my current female. Auroras for what ever reason grow extremely slow. I think that my 1.2 trio will be one of the only unrelated groups of L.aurora outside of europe and south africa. The last time these were bred in the US was some time in the late nineties, maybe 2000. It will be a really neat project for sure. No I am not currently breeding mice however the guy I get my feeders from has both mouse and rats of every size. I will post some pics of the pair when they get here in a couple weeks!

[Macropodus]

cool! keep us updated. I wasn't aware that they were slow growers. Have you considered African Soft Furred pups for them? Many, including myself, have noticed faster growth rates amongst Ball Pythons fed ASF vs the standard Norwegian. Higher protein vs fat content. Also makes sense (at least to me) to feed an African prey item to an African reptile. Norwegian rats would seem to be an unnatural, foreign food item that they could only possibly encounter in captivity (captivity outside of Africa).

[Primal Rage]

Will do! ASF's are a no no here in Georgia. But I do agree with the rat vs mice nutrition idea! As soon as I can get my Honduran milks on rats they really take off growth wise! My female aurora would eat pieces of sliced raw chicken and tilapia when she was a hatchling. Now she turns her nose up at both but yes I love to use alternative food items when given the chance. I have a couple adult female hondos that will eat pieces of raw chicken and a female tri color hognose that loves it.

[Macropodus]

Live ASF's are prohibited in some states, frozen pinkies should be permitted anywhere.