Blog Archives - House Snake Morphs & More

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A collection of knowledge on (not just) lamprophid snakes

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3/27/2025

T- Albino or T+?

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Ok so heres what you need to know.

What the T stands for in "T" albino is Tyrosinase.

The difference between T- and T+ albino is whether or not the animal has (partially) functioning tyrosinase genes (+) or not (-). Tyrosinase is a copper-containing enzyme crucial for melanin biosynthesis, catalyzing the oxidation of tyrosine to L-DOPA and subsequent reactions that lead to melanin (color) production.

If you just said, Huh?- no worries, Heres the differences for what it means for us as snake keepers/breeders:

T- have red irises as adults, and T+ have black irises.

But its really hard to tell them apart visually as newborn hatchlings until you have a trained eye for it. So its always best to keep track of lineage, but even more so if you're going to work with both.

I've never noticed any difference in temperament or care between the two. So if pet ownership is what you're after, just pick whichever one pulls your heart strings you know?

There are things that are good to know for breeders planning future pairings though:

They are not compatible genes, so if you cross a visual T- albino with a visual T+ albino you will get double hets instead of visuals.

T+'s are more of a caramel color than t-'s, (tyrosinase contains copper). They tend to turn more brown or warmer toned as they age, but not by much.

I find T-s to be more saturated in color and a bit cooler toned. Excellent for retaining locality colors when outcrossing.

T+'s are the go to choice for retaining warm tones and when you dont want that extra saturation though. For example the T- hypo butter would be kinda white or practically grey, whereas the t+ hypo butter is a gorgeous shade of soft pale yellow. T+ are considerably easier to work with when doing hypo morphs too. Its pretty easy to tell a T+ hypo apart from a t+, but its impossible to tell a T- hypo apart from a light colored T-, so that's something to be aware of.

So which one is right for you as a breeder is going to strongly depend on your end goal.

I hope that helps :)

3/24/2025

Can I use the images on this website?

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Yep happy to share, we do appreciate photo credit of course.

We get a kick out of knowing our animals have been published in various places so let us know what you're using it for if you'd like, it brings us joy. :)

3/24/2025

Why you cant "shotgun treat" file snakes for parasites

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3/24/2025

How to properly label your hatchlings

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3/24/2025

How to breed Egg Eating Snakes

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3/24/2025

How to breed File Snakes

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3/24/2025

How to breed House Snakes

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3/24/2025

How we incubate eggs at HSM

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3/24/2025

Benefits of Rack Keeping vs Glass

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3/24/2025

Do files really eat that?

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3/24/2025

Is this a mite?!

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3/24/2025

Pros & Cons of Live & FT feed

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3/24/2025

Let's get those newborns started!

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First of all, congratulations on your clutch!

Snake keeping is an art as well as a science, so everyone has their own methods and order they may employ them. Here's my protocols. I've developed them over the past couple decades and they work for me. They may not work for everyone. Some people may not agree with all of these tactics, or find them all necessary. That's ok. I use them because I find them to be effective.

Step 1). Set up hatchling bins. We house ours individually in a small plastic escape proof enclosures. At time of writing, ours measure 5" wide by 15" long by 3" high. They're basically jumbo pencil boxes. We find they do better in smaller spaces at first. Inside this bin goes a super tight hide and a water dish big enough to soak in. They're tiny so a black 2oz condiment cup with a lid, an access hole, and a pinch of peat/spagnum moss works great for the hide. An article on the importance of security and hides for feeding success can be read at this link. By the time you're breeding I assume you're already quite familiar with the temperature/humidity requirements but skadaddle on down to the care page if ya need a refresher.

Step 2) leave 'em tf alone until after their first shed. NO handling! NO sexing! No disturbances of any kind. You wait until after the feeding for such things. Security is so important that a lot of the other tricks people may suggest are typically reiterations of replicating a dark secure environment... i.e. the ones like, I put her in a lunch bag stapled shut and when I came back she ate! If she didn't have anywhere in her enclosure to feel safe enough to do it, then of course she would eat once you provided it. See? Point is, don't skip this step. Hides are important, safety is important. Security matters a LOT. Do I dare say more than prey choice? Yeah I do.

We need to establish security and safety for feeding, its a very vulnerable thing! They're tiny and you're an enormous predator for all they know. Imagine a 200 foot alien ripping the roof off your house and grabbing you 150 feet into the air, messing with your butt and preventing your escape. how safe would you feel? Would your first impression of the alien be positive? Fear is the opposite of security. So do what you can to keep them feeling as safe as possible until after the first successful meal- and that includes leaving you out of the equation- just for now. As a bonus, babies allowed to establish confidence before handling also handle better when it comes time. Less fear= less panic induced flights or defensive biting etc. Win and win.

Step 3) after the shed, its time for the first offering. Drop in a Red hot pinky mouse, whole, live, must be under 2 grams. Close it up. No dangle jangle or any nonsense. Drop it in, back away. You want them to think they just stumbled across it naturally. (again don't be the alien!)

Its important that it's under 2g. That's a "red hot"- under 2g. (Click here for more info on prey sizing) As close to 0.5g as possible would be ideal. House snakes truly can eat enormous meals for their size, but you aren't doing yourself any favors trying to get a 5 gram snake to eat a 3 gram pinky for its very first meal.... that would take some confidence they may just not have yet. So weigh it if you must, aim for as small as possible. Try no more often than once every 5 days. Once a week is a typical schedule.

Doing these three steps right works about 90% of the time....

but alas, not every time...

So after 3 attempts with a no go, the next try would be a pithing of a red hot. Take a tiny pin and poke it into the pinky brain to get some of the goo out. Gross and hurts the soul a little? Yes. Effective? Yes.

If you can't source red hots that small, take what you can acquire live, prekill by pith, then cut it in half lengthwise and try that. feed as fresh from the kill as possible.

Still no go? buy them frozen that small (rodentpro sells red hots as XS pinky mice), and try that. Yeah, sometimes some animals do prefer to start on frozen thawed. these tend to be real nervous babies. My guess is the 'dead' smell is reassuring that there wont be a struggle. Its rare but it happens!

For the real fussy Mcfussertons:

Now its been over a month with no food. you've tried what you can with straight mice and you're at "pulling the hair out" level. Oh friend, I have been there.

Its time to consider scenting. either make or buy some gecko juice. I recommend using house gecko. Anole isn't native it doesn't work anywhere near as well. Make sure the juice, or the prey item before it was juiced, was frozen for at least 72 hours before offering. this is because those lizards are going to be wild caught and you'll want to freeze them ahead of time to make those parasites incapable/less able to infect the snake. You wouldn't want a captive born hatchling being parasitized so young. They just aren't big enough to support the additional drain on the system.

I say consider because you shouldn't go straight to gecko juice aka " the black crack". The conversion process off gecko can be tough. They can get stuck on it- and it's not cheap. So tread here only when you've tried everything else without scenting. Still it works, especially for babies of wild caught mothers (captive hatched) because the lineage hasn't been bred towards mouse prey preference for generations like some lines of captive born (yes mine included of course). So the reason it works so well is because Gecko is the native prey and captive hatched babies haven't yet been 'wired' for rodents per se. So gecko juice is a great tool for captive hatched babies that may turn a nose at rodents. Nod Nod.

To use you simply rinse off your mouse in tepid water, place in a small condiment cup (a tablespoon works too!) and baste a little in the gecko juice. give it like a 10 minute bath in the secret sauce and drop it in.

Important tip!

Give it a few weeks before you get anxious. If it's not visibly lost body condition it's ok! Bigger babies will typically take longer before their first meal. This is simply because it takes them longer to absorb all the nutrients from their egg yolk- well- because they have more of it. They just aren't hungry yet.

The trick is to not panic with the troublesome starters. Security is the name of the game. If you've got the environment right, it likely just needs some time. So if you start doing nonsense like shoving tails down them they're not only not getting enough nutrition (tails are not nutritionally complete like while prey) you're also begging them to be nervous eaters ( association is food=not safe), plus be terrified of humans (humans=not safe). Oof. Hard lessons learned. It works in other species, but man house snakes are smart folks. they'll remember. clever girls.

If the body condition is terrible and you truly do get desperate carnivore care can be purchased off Amazon. Mix 1 tbsp powder with water, load into a syringe equipped with a 2mm ball tip gavage needle. Administer 0.5cc a week. Carnivore care is meal replacement for critically ill reptiles, nutritionally dense and complete. Its not perfect, it won't grow them, but it works to give you some time. I've personally used it to gain a whole 4 months before the fussy butt finally got the idea that surviving is maybe a cool idea and started to eat on their own. Aye ye ye! This was a truly tiny 3gram snake who was in all other ways developmentally normal, but needed some time to get big enough to take down whole prey. I only mention this to illustrate how well it does work. I would not recommend that level of a stretch under other circumstances. which brings me to....

Lastly, sometimes we have to accept that failure to thrive is real.

The truth is, you truly can not save them all. At some point as a breeder you do need to assess if this animal will have a good quality of life, and if not euthanasia needs to be considered. It hurts, especially when you've put a lot of effort and hope into the little guy, but being forced to eat their entire life is not a good quality of life for a snake. A lot of these guys that just truly seem to be fighting the idea of eating have internal issues that you may not be seeing on the outside. They may be suffering, and keeping them going through artificial means is not humane. Letting them go does NOT mean you failed. It means you came to conclusion that their peace was more important than your feelings. That takes real strength and maturity. It hurts, but when we venture to bring life into the world, we must also embrace that the opposite side of that coin is death. Still, may the odds of that coin toss be ever in your favor friend. :)

I hope this helps. If you have any questions feel free to reach out.

3/24/2025

Zambian or Uganda Green?

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3/24/2025

Help with handling fussy babies

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3/24/2025

Scalation based Identifications

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3/24/2025

The taxonomy mess for house snake keepers

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3/24/2025

Protecting your captive born animal from acquiring parasites. What you need to know.

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Parasites, What you need to know.

People read some of these articles and think I bang on a little too much about parasites.

Truth is, that's my day job. Parasitology is my main research focus, and I'm fascinated by them much in the same way that I'm fascinated by snakes. It's a passion of mine to understand the one, to the benefit of the other.

So naturally I'm aware of some myths in herpetoculture that really aren't servicing us well. This article aims to help you understand the facts so you can protect your animals, and your sanity.

Lets dig right in:

You’ll hear it said that:

“you should always buy captive born because then you wont have to deal with parasites”

“A captive born animal can't have parasites” As in, there is something about their birth location that transfers an immunity to parasites upon captive born animals.

Or even less fortunate for community morale, “If you were sold an animal as captive born and it later is found to have parasites, the person you bought it from lied to you”. As in, the animal was wild caught and dishonesty from the seller is the only possible explanation.

None of this is true.

Parasite Fact to Understand #1- A parasite is a separate living thing from its host. It does not care where the host was born.

It is true that a captive born animal -at birth- should not have parasites. This is not due to any special immunity that captive animals have though. They simply have not been exposed to any yet.

A wild caught animal is more likely to be exposed to parasites simply by the fact they live in the wild and are more able to be exposed to anything: including predation, road accidents, and yes parasites too.

So yes, a wild caught animal is waay more likely to harbor a parasite due to their higher risk of exposure- but a parasite needs only to gain access to its host in order to begin the infection process. So don’t assume an animal is immune or must be parasite free based solely on “captive born status”.

Side note for the smarty pants amongst us: Yes, It is true that members of the nematode and fluke classes have been found inside developing eggs before. So an infected mother technically can pass parasites into the ova-- that is true. But! So far, in snakes, none of those infected eggs have been documented to hatch. Were concerned with live snakes not scrambled eggs, therefore if it hatched it’s safe to assume it was not actively infected at birth. Moving on.

Now this part is very important to understanding parasites in order to protect your colony so read it twice.

Parasite Fact #2- There are many, many, ways for parasites to gain access to their host.

More myths you might hear are related to host specificity, or transmission.

Transmission Myth: “I keep my wild caught animals separate from my captive born ones so there’s no way my captive born animals could be infected”

Or

Host Specificity myth: “my snake never ate another reptile, bird, whatever and therefore this parasite can’t happen or did happen because of x, y, or z”.

And the like….

So lets cover why these are myths:

Starting with host specificity: That's when someone says something like, “I never fed this animal reptiles so it could not possibly have this parasite” etc. Or this parasite is typically contracted from eating a reptile or amphibian host therefore this infected animal has to have been fed one for it to have caught it.

Nope. All that has to happen was one egg had to be carried from one place to another. While your frog or gecko whatever may have been the most common route, that egg does not care so long as it gets from A to B alive.

A common example you'll see for the transmission route for parasites with an intermediary host goes something like this: parasites eggs are laid in water, eaten by fish, fish eaten by lizard, that lizard is eaten by a snake and walah. Snake Infection. People get the impression that's the only way it can happen. It's not.

Here’s the thing, in many parasites that snake could have also just drank the water. Or ate the fish. Or a mouse ate that fish and the snake ate the mouse… Very few parasites are actually species specific where they must follow these exact steps. These things more explain typical exposure routes than dictate it- and that's assuming a wild environment not a captive one, but we’ll get to that.

For funsies, let’s assume the parasite absolutely had to develop in a lizard. Ok that lizard is the one developing the infectious eggs. It’s now pooping out eggs or it dies and its poop or body is eaten by an insect like a cockroach or fly, and that fly lands in a water bowl drank by the snake, or that cockroach eaten by a mouse, then eaten by the snake. Or that anole pooped in the water supply of a rodent farm, those rodents eaten by a snake. Or the cockroach’s poop ends up rubbed against the lip of the snake and it ends up in their mouth. There are just so many, many ways this can happen.

Point is it made it to the snake without the snake ever eating the lizard. So even in parasites that have reptile intermediary hosts, another reptile is not necessarily required to transmit. The egg (or nymph what have you) has to be ingested, but that egg doesn't necessarily have to be inside another reptile's body when it was. This makes sense when you think about it- When your survival is based upon attachment to another animal, the best evolutionary strategies are based on maximizing the opportunity to do so. Diversity is advantageous to parasites, so parasites rarely are that host specific.

Another thing is sometimes people actually are feeding reptiles/fish/birds/worms/etc to their snakes without realizing it too. For example, it is a fairly common practice for people to use scenting liquids to entice their animals to eat. Some common ones are gecko juice and frog juice. This liquid is made of the ground strained whole bodies of geckos or frogs. Should any of those prey items that were ground up to make the juice be infected, and you then baste the rodent in the infected juice and feed it to your snake- welp you've now fed an infected reptile to your snake- without realizing it.

Moral of the story: Its not safe to draw conclusions about your animal’s parasite status based upon a parasite's host specificity.

Which brings me to the Transmission Myth: “I keep my wild caught animals separate from my captive born ones so there’s no way my captive born animals could be infected”

Nope again. Folks there are quite literally hundreds of thousands of species of parasitic life, and we’re still discovering more. The modes in which a parasite can gain access are quite vast, and parasites evolve to suit their needs same as everything else. Life finds a way.

Parasites can be transmitted not only via direct contact with the animals poop or mucus membranes but also can be carried via your water, inside your food chain, inside your soil or bedding, by any sort of pest (flies, roaches, spiders) or other parasite (mites etc) that has access to your colony, the list goes on.

There are soil helminths (worms) that are infectious to snakes. Many parasites lay eggs in water and a shared contaminated water can spread infection to an entire colony rapidly. Many, many, parasites are transmitted by eating something else. Most of us are not growing our own rodents. Anything you bring into the room is a new factor and potential source for infection. Shared anything can cross contaminate. Do you use the same tools across different animals? Are you washing their water bowls in the same sink? Does your quarantine and captive room share air conditioning?... You have exposure.

Then there is the super obvious thing all your animals share exposure to, which of course is *you*.

You can touch that door knob in your captive colony with something on your hands and then touch something else, likely over and over again after visiting various places like your quarantine room, and now what evers on that knob is now what's in the room…. What else do you touch? your phone you carried in? Or your glasses? You can go to a show wearing your jacket and hold that pretty house snake and not see the mite that crawled onto your sleeve. Or the worm eggs you just barely didn't coat with the hand sanitizer when you gave it back after it musked you. Did you wash that jacket and every item of clothing you had on after you went to the show? Did you wash, you? Some things are zoonotic (meaning they can infect you). Have you been parasite tested?

Do you see my point?

None of us are running Biosafety Level 4 quarantine rooms out of our houses, and scrubbing down and showering between rooms. So if your quarantine and captive population share anything at all. You have some risk of exposure.

Don't get me wrong, It is always a good idea to quarantine your animals. I strongly advocate for it. I sure do myself, if I take anything new in. That will *lessen* the risk. But don't make the mistake of assuming you have zero risk. You don't.

And the last myth:

“My wild caught snake was given x,y,z dewormer the day it arrived and that treats everything so theres no way this snake has anything.”

Oh lord thats the faultiest one here. This ones not only wrong but dangerous to your snake on top of it.

There is no such thing as a single dose all in one dewormer for reptiles. Does not exist. You may hear people say, well I gave it a dose of panacur and flagyl so its ‘treated’. NO ITS NOT. First of all, both of those medications have to be given in multiple doses at specific times to be effective, and that schedule depends on what you're trying to treat, so the only way to know the right course of treatment is to know what you are treating…. So you have to test to know, but by that point you wouldn't be shoving some random medication down its throat- you’d know what they have, if anything, and you'd be treating specifically for that. Ineffective treatments will lead to the parasite coming right back during the next cycle, and worse resistance to the treatment can develop.

Second, those two meds do NOT treat everything. There are parasites that are entirely unphased by the horse dewormers people get from feed stores and try to give to their reptiles. You're not going to be able to “cover all your bases”. It doesn't work like that.

Third, Just like in humans, its a really bad idea to go about mixing random medications on the off chance there might be some unknown something there. Drug interactions can occur in snakes too.

Fourth, treatment has costs on the body too. Unnecessary treatment in a healthy snake can upset gut flora which can create its own problems to avoid a problem you didn't even have. You also might kill your snake in the process of a necessary but untimely treatment. There are some circumstances where deworming treatment needs to be delayed or done in stages to prevent a worse outcome. Some snakes don't have the strength to survive the deworming process and you'll need to solve what's causing that first.

So to recap, “shotgun” treatment- is not treatment. It's built upon nonsense, and it's dangerous. In addition to the potential liver and kidney damage- that snake could very well still have a parasite, and you could spread it by thinking its been "treated".

By now you're probably thinking, Jeesh April we get it. Were exposed. Thanks for scaring the heck out of us. I'm sorry guys, but I have to. It's the only way to bring about an honest, thorough perspective.

So! If you cant really prevent exposure, what can we do?

Well, if you want to keep live animals you're going to need to assess what level of risk you are comfortable with- and what measures you're willing to take to prevent infection.

#1 Dont make assumptions.
Remember we’re all exposed to some degree. Even your bestest buddy you've known your whole life and would never sell you an infected animal! - Hey I'm sure he wouldn't- not intentionally. Most people dont mean for stuff like that to happen- but people do not know what is going on *internally* with another creature at all times. It's not reasonable to think they would. But this is one case where what you don't know actually can hurt you, so we must take responsibility for our own veterinary health and do not make assumptions. Instead- get tests. Know.

Parasite test every single new animal, within days of acquiring it. As soon as possible. This way you can prevent spread and get an idea of how far the infection has progressed for treatment. Knowing how long the animal has been infected can help with things like if anemia is going to be a concern or the potential risk for spread within your colony etc.

Unfortunately, how long the animal has had something is not always something you can pinpoint, but its basically impossible to know if it came from within your colony or from outside it if you delayed the test until significantly later after acquiring it. So do it immediately. Be proactive. Know.

#2 Take precautions according to your risk comfort level.

Some will take more precautions than others. That's ok. Weigh the risks and do what's right for you. Here's some things you can do to lessen your risk:

Quarantine and test every new animal. Test any animal with symptoms immediately. Periodically test a random sample animal. Have necropsies performed if an animal dies.

Purchase separate tools and handling equipment, dishes, water jugs, etc for use with quarantined animals.

Use a hepa air filter in your reptile areas.

Wash the entirety of you, your clothes, etc before entering clean areas and after leaving quarantine areas to avoid contaminating common spaces. Test yourself periodically.

Freeze all food and scenting supplies for a minimum of 15 days before use (some take even longer).

If you feed live, you have feed risk even if you raise your own rodents, but you can control variables better if you raise your own.

Freeze or bake your soil or bedding.

Use disposable dishes like deli cups to prevent contamination from washing things together etc.

Time your contact times with a stopwatch to ensure proper contact time for sanitizers like rescue, f10sc.

Test your water source.

If you're thinking wow, that's a lot. It is.

Which is why you’ll have to decide what your personal level of comfort is with the risks. None of us are truly at zero risk no matter what we do. All you really can do is prevent what you can, and when that doesn't work look for possible exposure points, address those for the future, and treat those infected.

Truth is parasitism is something that you’ll likely encounter over a long enough period of time in keeping. Whether it’s mites or a nematode or whatever, the odds are very good that one day you'll deal with one of them. That's because life is resilient and diverse, even if inconvenient sometimes. It doesn't mean you're a bad keeper or anyone else is. We can't possibly control everything, as hard as we might try. So be gentle on yourself, and if you have it in you, on others too.

I hope this helps.

3/24/2025

How to sex lamprophids properly

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3/24/2025

Genetics, Localities, and Polygenic Traits, Oh my!

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3/24/2025

Troubleshooting Feeding Issues in house snakes

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