Reptile Collection (NOT 56k friendly)

[Kenshin]

i was wondering if anyone else was into keeping & breeding of australian reptiles, i myself have kept alot of different species over the years but this year im focused on snakes only for awhile. Having moved across states and having to rebuild most of my enclosures, incubators, hatchling racks etc this is where all my money has been going for awhile as i dont have a small collection and the breeding season is upon us as we speak.

We are lucky to be in qld we have the cheapest and easiest licensing system in australia all you do is pay 66 bucks and fill out your online form and you get your recreational wildlife licence INSTANTLY (print it out) which is valid for 5 years and they send your record book out to you the following week.

anyhow my camera got smashed in my tackle bag so theres alot of photo's i want to throw up but they may be afew weeks away (i'll add them to this thread later) anyhow heres some herps

some jungle carpet pythons

southwest carpet pythons

coastal carpet pythons

[Kenshin]

afew more

scrubs (australia's largest snake and a feirce predator)

spike anyones interest?

[Kenshin]

my old darwin carpets was spewing i had to sell these

olives

stimsons

some monitors i used to have

[LIVE_2_FiSH]

such awesome colouring! thanks for sharing

[51MPL]

madness! what kind of work is involved with keeping a snake? / howto setup?

tank / feeding them etc?

[shortie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqg3Pg2M9WU&feature=player_embedded

[Kenshin]

51MPL - not alot of work at all thats part of why i like them so much as a youngster they can be kept in the most basic of setups in the form of a plastic tub with a lockable top afew sheets of news paper, a small hide and a waterbowl and a cheap heat cord is all you need and you can keep them in tubs till they reach about 3-4ft (just keep upping the size of the tubs as they grow) then i transfer them into theyre adult enclosures which are melamine with glass doors and a single 100w lamp to provide heat

feeding is simple one appropriate sized food item per 7 days while young then once every 10 days when 2+ years old and 2+ years onwards they get cooled for 3-6months of the year so theres no need to feed them in this time

shortie - thats an old one off youtube the snake in that vid is an olive python like the ones in my pic

[fishingnut]

cool lizards bugger the snakes

[Kenshin]

a bite from a python is fk all a bite from a small monitor frigging canes especially when the little bastards dont let go and just keep chewing on you had to put a drop of vodka or scotch near theyre mouth on more then one occasion

[RyanG45]

Kenshin wrote:

my old darwin carpets was spewing i had to sell these

mate thats a nice pic right there

[Joel Eadie]

great looking snakes, how much do the jungle pythons go for?

[Kenshin]

depending on quality, age and locale/bloodline basicly anywhere from 200 - 800

you can get some pretty dull jungles that are brown and not gold they are cheap the black and golds you should pay around 300-350 for a good quality hatchling/yearling

the black jungle in the first pic has a rare genetic trait where when they get old (he is 9yrs) they start turning black but when younger are brilliant black and gold he throws awsome bubs

[hooked_on_trout]

some beautiful creatures there.

Bearded dragons are quite good they will eat anything that moves.

Also this is true I knew a guy that had a blue tongue that would drink from a bottle.

cheers

[Kenshin]

ill see if i can dig out some pics of some other lizards iv had

[katfish]

I used to have an Atherton jungle, but when he got past 6years old he started to fade, then he just looked like a coastal. although he wasnt a pure black and yellow, still nice colouring. you said, no dramas being bitten, but when mine hit me feeding him a mouse, and not my regular rats,he missed the target, got me on the hand, no joke it felt like being hit with a hammer. he held his grip for about 5 minutes before I could work him free of my bruised & bloody hand. ended up pulling 5 teeth out as a memento of my trouble.

I worked at cairns tropical zoo for a while as a leafcutter & handler for the teddies, but spent most of my spare time with the reptiles, just love em.

had to sell my snakes due to moving to often.

I still have a couple of enclosures that I will sell if your interested.

btw; nice collection you have, got any womas or black headed, I can put you in touch with a breeder who has both. you probably know someone already. cheers

[Kenshin]

funlly enough as long as iv been into herps iv never kept any aspidites yet been focused on morelia

a food response bite like you experienced is much different to a defensive bite and theres a neat trick if you do happen to get wrapped when hit with a food resposive bite

all you do is throw it all in cold water they will let go this way they wont be fighting against you and bruising you up/leaving teeth in you

athertens are classed as jungles but tend to be more coastal looking in that they are dull, you can get black and golds that have brilliant colour and as they get older the gold will turn to a lemonish colour but sometimes you are lucky and get one that stays gold

pitty you stopped keeping reptiles i find its not that hard to move snakes but keep away from lizards now for that reason if you want to offload some enclosures may be able to help you out but need pics, dimensions and prices

[dassa]

G'day kenshin We spent the queens birthday in melbourne with a mate of mine and he has a collection although not as large as your he's got 2pythons,a monitor,frilneck,blue tongue and yes a fresh water croc but it's only about 30cm.My oldest daughter was at the tank having a look at the croc when it lepped across the tank to attack her and she nearly crapped her dacks :laugh: :laugh:

Also he's got turtles,frog's,possums,2 dogs and a cat.But I think he should feed the cat the the snakes

[Kenshin]

i love freshwater crocs one of the few things we cant keep here

frill necks are fantastic iv always wanted some but again im focusing on snakes for the next few years

[sweresy]

awesome. simple as that, ps how big / what type are the moniters?

[Kenshin]

iv kept:

varanus scalaris - spotted tree monitor only get about 1ft in length

varanus acanthurus - ackies variable in size but mine only got a ft in length

varanus tristis tristis - black tailed monitors, again variable i had the southwest form that is the largest and blackest they got about 80cm

theres heaps of other species i like the large ones but obviously renting with large lizards is a nightmare im considering getting varanus brevicaudia (short tailed pygmy monitor) they are the smallest monitor in the world they get no larger then a gecko

[Kenshin]

some other lizards iv bred

[Kenshin]

non reptile photo of my favorite brackish tank i kept was 566L had 4 massive archers, a breeding pair of purple spot gudgeons and 4 green chromides

the archers did so well because they got heaps of live shrimp, fish, crickets and roaches that i used to also feed to the lizards and also pinkie mice these archers got massive

[katfish]

one enclosure is an old fish tank, 600mm by 600mm by 1200mm glass is 6 or 7mm thick I think. on stand $50 good nic but very heavy

second is timber home made, not bad for me, ha ha. cant remember exact dimensions, about 600mm by 600mm by 1000mm high, with glass front, sorry, had glass front, missing. cost to replace glass about $70. will let that go for $ 50 as well. thats in good nic too. cheers.

[elops]

Sorry I know its a reptile thread but how big did the T. chatareus(archers) get ?

Used to have a very large scrub python that hung out in the shed at my old house but the poor bugger got blamed for some missing pets and it got relocated, your right awesome predator

[Kenshin]

my T. chatareus were monsters they all ranged from 10-12 inches some of the best fish iv kept they were ravenous i really miss keeping that tank in hindsight i would have pulled the chromides out and put in other aussie natives

i got over hauling all my tanks around so i got rid of them i used to also breed apistogramma and afew other cichlids as well but will stick to just the reptiles now

i removed a large coastal carpet from someones back yard last month in burpengary he was a big boy well conditioned and about 8.5ft long not to badly tempered for a wild snake ither

[katfish]

yeah, I moved 5 times in one year, didnt think it fair on my herps. If I do get back into it, will probably just get another spotted, or stimpsons, they are good value, and easy to keep and dont bite as hard, haha. the cold water is good idea, but when you have a well conditioned (not fat as my vet said) python wrapped around your arm and latched on tight, to be honest, I didnt realy know what to do. that was the first and only time he got me. I was a bit more cautious after that. the natural human response is to go crazy, but being a herpetologist ( using word lightly ) I knew I just had to stand my ground, not panic, and wait till he realized that I wasnt food, and let go, which he did. his name was solomon, as in solomon carpets haha, I thought that was a good name. my spotted was named spot, go figure. cheers.

[nadders]

very cool thread mate love the reptiles

used to have a big carpet in the back yard but havent seen him for about a year, was a big snake found a shed skin on the roof the other week.

cheers

dan

[Kenshin]

big coastal would be loving the feral cat population around your area

iv got two more female jungles to pick up in the next two weeks just in time for breeding season

[51MPL]

i vote you bring some of the snakes to the next AFO event hahaha, are they easy to transport etc? or do they get worked up if you take them out of the tank?

[Kenshin]

depends on the individual, i have some that are calm majority of the time and i have others that are little chainsaws at the best of times

[Kenshin]

hey katfish i use all melamine enclosures so they are all uniform and stack up neatly against the walls of my reptile rooms but i have a mate that may be interested in your old enclosures email me some pics of them so he gets the general idea and i will forward them to him

[big al]

what is that one second from bottom the orange one..looks like one i saw at whivenhoe dam one night while walking along the bank thanks al ( the snake above the one with the rat in its mouth)

[Kenshin]

the little red one on the hand is a juvi scrub python (morelia kinghorni) they start off red/orange/brown and turn theyre adult colour as they get bigger theyre native to far north qld

the other one with the day old chick in its mouth is a darwin carpet python (morelia spilota varigata) native to the NT

[Schmuck]

Kenshin wrote:

the archers did so well because they got heaps of live shrimp, fish, crickets and roaches that i used to also feed to the lizards and also pinkie mice these archers got massive

Whoa you fed the archers pinkies?

My mate has a decent collection of herps and insects. He started off with a bearded dragon and 18 months later had reptiles and scorpions all over the place. I'll see if I can dig up any pictures I took of them and add to the thread.

[Kenshin]

yea mate the archers had no drama's with pinkies they have had alot bigger mice then that they were absolute units and i could get them to jump almost a foot straight up to grab them

[Kenshin]

would have gone wicked on the 1-3 kg stick

[katfish]

Kenshin, no worries m8, give me a couple of days for photos.

[crazywalrus]

growing up I used to fish for the archers (rifle fish up north) in Tinaroo dam. They are awesome fish to catch and fight well for their size. Sometimes on a fly rod as well. An awesome aquarium fish as well. Nice tank there. Cheers Ted

[faulked]

made my day to see some fantastic looking snakes my daughter loved them too but my wife left for work early muttering nasty words

nice work on the snakes

jason

[Kenshin]

faulked wrote:

made my day to see some fantastic looking snakes my daughter loved them too but my wife left for work early muttering nasty words

nice work on the snakes

jason

good comment, they make the best pets and they can make fantastic displays to i love promoting the hobby if you have a good opinion of snakes mabye you should look at getting one or 12 as a pet

drop me a PM if you need a helping hand

iv just done a big order of enclosures iv got one reptile room thats wall to wall now just doing the other one