chinese ratsnake question

[reptile boi]

Hey everyone,

A while ago i went to a petstore, and they had a chinese corn/rat snake for sale at $59.99 or i think it was $69.99 cant quite remember, but whats the market price for these guys?




Thanks,
Ben

[snakehunter]

i would say less, a king at a petstore would cost about 60 bucks, and we all know very well a king ata ahow will run no more that 20. i try to keep this in mind when looking at herps at petstores, and then i feel sorry for them!

[Katt]

He's talking Canada, and up here, kings would run more than $20USD.

[Vanan]

Going by the price, I'm more inclined to say that it's one of those chinese garters/corn/rat. hehe. Rather Elaphe rufodorsata. Look em up. They're similar to the bimac's but not yet heard of anyone keeping the rufos alive for more than a year. I had two and gave it a shot. They ate pinks, no problem and then up and died after about 6mths.

As for market price, that's how much I bought mine 3yrs ago from a pet store.

[reptile boi]

Hey Vanan,

How did yours die?



Thanks,
Ben

[Vanan]

I just found em dead one day. Didn't bother to do a necropsy on them. They ate and were healthy up until the day they died. On hindsight, I think it might have to do with what I was feeding them. I was giving them pinks (not knowing and having the info which is available now about their wild diet) and might have caused fatty liver disease. Their wild diet is supposed to consist of fish, worms etc. More of a typical garter type diet.

Hi

I've no idea what the current market price would be, but I paid about $20-25 each in the late 80's for 2 of them.

As for captive care, I treated mine much more like natricines than ratsnakes and had no issues. I fed them mostly fish, however they would also take live pink mice. What I remember most however was their nasty temper.

It would be interesting to hear of someone captive breeding them, but I would suspect most (if not all) are comming into pet stores wild caught from SE Asia with tremendous parasite loads.