Do you ever see an animal in a book or magazine and think “I’d really love to work with an amazing creature like that!”? I mean, think back, really think back to a time when you saw a picture or video of an animal that really got your blood pumping and made that little flame of passion inside of you start blazing… We had that moment several years ago.
R&B Reptiles is owned and operated by a pair of funny blokes named Ryan Goodman and Ben Levin. It all started for us when Ryan nearly tricked Ben into starting a reptile business by getting him to go to one of the larger reptile expos in the US. After Ben got a small glimpse into this crazy but fascinating industry, he got hooked. Like a lot of people, we started off with a couple of boas and a handful of ball pythons. As our friend David Levinson always says “Ball Pythons are the gateway drug into the reptile hobby.” He was right and it was all downhill after that.
After a few years, we wanted to start expanding our collection by getting into Blue Tongue Skinks, Pygmy Pythons, insects, and Asian rat snakes. Ryan had been looking at countless species of snakes in the herpetocultural world. But it wasn’t until a trip to BHB Reptiles, to visit Brian Barczyk, that we got our first up close look at a pair of Rhino Rat Snakes (Gonyosoma boulengeri). We were instantly hooked. After seeing these cool looking snakes in books and in old magazines, we got to hold them and found out first hand why people loved working with them. Of course, we bought a pair of babies.
Did you know the easiest way to start baby Rhino Rat Snakes out feeding, is to buy a few small live rosy red minnows and put them in their water dish? They actually go hunt for the fish. It is so neat! Once you get them eating, you put a frozen/thawed, day old mouse pink in the water at each feeding. After they start eating the mouse pink along with their fish, you start only putting the mouse pink in the water. Eventually, you don’t have to put the F/T mouse pink in their water dish any more and they will even start feeding right off of the tongs. What a fun species!
As they started to grow, we wanted to get into all of the old world Asian rat snakes that we could find. We ended up making friends with a great guy named Matthew Most. He runs Sarpamitra LLC and works with a ton of rare rat snakes, pythons, and a myriad of other really interesting species; too many to list. Naturally, we had to pick up a bunch of babies Matt produced. He got us into 3 species of Bamboo Rat Snakes (Oreocryptophis porphyraceus), Japanese Forest Rat Snakes (Euprepiophis conspicillata), Mandarin Rat Snakes (Euprepiophis mandarinus), and more Rhino Rat Snakes (Gonyosoma boulengeri).
Funny story, Matt talked Ben into a group of Rhino Rat Snakes at a Tinley Expo at like 1am after Ryan went to bed and thought we had already bought enough animals on that trip. Ryan wasn’t too pleased… Note to self: Don’t let Matt Most know you are awake at a reptile expo that he is attending. He’ll send you fancy pictures and make you offers you can’t refuse…
All that being said, we found ourselves learning the best ways to work with each of these species. They all seem to respond well to being kept pretty much the same, though we strongly suggest watching how each individual animal reacts to slight changes in their husbandry. We find there could be little tweaks that make big differences with specific animals, even of the same species. Here is the run-down of how we keep them:
- Rack system 28qt tubs with plenty of substrate to borrow in (ProCoco)
- Room temperature (70-75 degrees Fahrenheit)
- 65% Humidity
- Try to keep the tubs well ventilated if possible
- Feeding on F/T Mice and Rats
When we are breeding them, we like to introduce the males into the female’s enclosure around the February timeframe. We keep them paired in the same enclosure full time, separating them only when feeding. Once the female goes off food and looks gravid, we stop pairing them and wait for eggs. After the first clutch is laid, we feed the females heavy for a few weeks. Then we put the male back in with her. Rinse and repeat for 3 clutches a year. Some species will only do two clutches a year and some more. Our good friend Robyn Markland from Redline Science, formerly from ProExotics, had a healthy female coxi lay 6 clutches in one year! Unbelievable.
Incubating the eggs is easy as pie. We keep the eggs in an egg box (just a plastic shoe box sized container with a snap shut top) with Press’n Seal between the container and the lid to hold the moisture in. We put very damp vermiculite in the bottom of the container then use a piece of a plastic light diffuser suspended over the vermiculite by way of a few 2oz deli cups acting as feet. The light diffuser separates the eggs from the damp vermiculite. This will ensure you can keep as much moisture as you want in the incubation box without the eggs sitting in water themselves.
We incubate the eggs at 72 degrees. The incubation time varies from species to species, but they will all hatch. You must be careful not to allow the eggs to get much warmer than 73 degrees or you run the risk of defects such as tail kinks. Once you hatch out your first few old world rats, we highly suggest you take a ton of pictures and blast them all over social media. This may seem funny, but nothing is cuter than baby animals and we truly want to help ignite the passions for rarer species in the hearts of all of your friends and families. Gotta spread the love, my friend!
Once you start keeping a few of these cool rat snakes, you’ll constantly be on the hunt for new species. It’s kind of like Pokemon, you’ll end up wanting to collect them all. There are 6 subspecies of porphyraceus, more than 4 localities of conspicillata, a bunch of variations of Mandarins, and the list goes on and on. This can be as expensive and rewarding as you want it to be. But in the end, you can say you don’t just look at the pictures in the books, you actually get to experience true passion each and every day.
Hard to beat old world rats!