The common snake is distributed throughout almost all of Europe, in North-West Africa, West Asia to North-West Mongolia, the south of Eastern Siberia and the regions of Northern China in the east and South-Western Iran in the south. It lives in various wet biotopes - along river banks, meadows, reed thickets, and forests. The coloring is the same - the general color is from gray to black, a characteristic feature is yellow or white spots behind the head, however, in some individuals they may be absent. The common one is very popular among beginner terrarium keepers, and its maintenance is not difficult. He needs a horizontal type terrarium, quite spacious, since the snake is quite mobile, with a large reservoir and several shelters. It is advisable to use hygroscopic soil - sphagnum moss, peat, a mixture of gravel and earth. The lighting should be powerful enough. Daytime temperature is 24-26 C, night temperature is about 18 C. The main food is frogs, and it is often possible to train snakes to take not only live frogs, but also pre-killed frogs, which is especially important in winter. Sometimes you can offer fish. To stimulate reproduction, snakes can be placed in an artificial winter hut for 2-3 months at 8-10C, which, however, is not necessary. You can get 2 or more clutches per year. Mating usually occurs in the spring, in April-May; after a few weeks, eggs are laid, up to 50 eggs. Incubation at 29C - 23-30 days. The young independently begin to feed on small frogs and live fish. Interestingly, snake clutches are extremely viable and can withstand short-term temperature changes from 10C to 55C.
Description and distribution
This harmless snake, well known to many Russians, reaches 120 (occasionally 150) cm in length. It has a dark, often black, coloration on the back and white spots on the belly. To understand that this snake is just an ordinary snake and should not be feared, you need to take a good look at the head. A characteristic feature in its color is the presence of yellow or white temporal spots.
The range of the snake is very wide. It can be found throughout almost all of Europe, North-West Africa, Western Asia, the south of Eastern Siberia and the adjacent regions of Northern China.
Features of biology
It lives in places one way or another connected with water - along the banks of rivers, lakes, ponds, in floodplain meadows, in reed thickets, swamps, near mountain streams and springs. He swims and dives well, and indulges in this activity with pleasure. You may have seen a snake in nature more than once. And not only in the forest, but also in the immediate vicinity of your home - in the garden, in the basement, in the barn or in a haystack.
During the winter, these snakes hibernate. To do this, they crawl into rodent holes, under tree roots and other shelters. Snakes emerge from wintering from March to May, depending on latitudinal conditions.
In the wild, snakes feed on frogs, toads, fish, lizards, as well as small rodents, birds and insects. In July-August, the female lays from 6 to 35 eggs in heaps of rotten leaves or manure, in rodent burrows, in soil cracks and other shelters with high humidity. Egg incubation lasts approximately 60 days. Babies appear in late July - early September.
To distinguish a male from a female, you need to pay attention to the tail. In males it is long and with a characteristic thickening at the base, and in females it is short, without thickening.
Content Features
To keep these reptiles you need a terrarium no smaller than 100 50 60 cm in size. To make the snake feel good, install a heating lamp in one corner of the terrarium, and in the other make a ventilation hole covered with a strong mesh. The temperature in a warm corner during the day should be up to 30°C. It would be nice to put some kind of stone under the lamp so that the snake can warm up. At night the heating must be turned off.
To make the snake feel comfortable, place some kind of random-shaped shelter in the terrarium: a snag, a shelf, a piece of bark. Be sure to install a ditch with water in your home, where it can calmly swim and soak during the molting period. And also put a ditch with peat or sphagnum or use them as soil. After all, snakes always choose damp places for their place of residence, and peat and sphagnum retain moisture well. To better retain moisture, periodically spray the soil with a spray bottle.
Feeding
Snakes in captivity are fed mainly with live frogs and fish. It must be remembered that it is especially difficult to provide snakes with live food in winter if the snakes are not hibernated. We can only recommend keeping a solid supply of frogs in the refrigerator. You can feed the snake approximately once every three days, after the snake has digested the previous food. For variety, you can offer him mice, but, in general, they are reluctant to take such food.
So that you can drink fresh water, you should regularly change it in the artificial reservoir of the terrarium. Along with the feed, it is necessary to give various mineral supplements: crushed eggshells, calcium gluconate or calcium glycerophosphate. You can add mineral water (Borjomi) to the drinking bowl. Powdered vitamins can be offered with food no more than once a month. Once a month, it is necessary to conduct a course of irradiation of the snake with ultraviolet radiation, using household appliances such as UV rays, from 1 to 5 minutes during the week from a distance of 50 cm. The substrate and skin of the animal must be dry. In summer you can take the snakes out into the sun.
Wintering
With constant feeding, especially for young snakes, wintering is not required. If snakes refuse to eat food during the winter season, or if you want to prepare it for reproduction, it is necessary to arrange wintering under strict observance of the following conditions. The snake should be placed in a light-proof, ventilated cage filled with sphagnum moss. The wintering temperature should be approximately 5-9°C. . Over the course of two weeks, you should gradually lower the temperature, making sure to first make sure that the snake has completely digested the food from the last feeding. When removing a snake from wintering, you need, on the contrary, to gradually increase the temperature. To maintain moisture, the soil in the cage must be sprayed periodically. The duration of wintering in the normal condition of the animal is about 2 months.
After being removed from wintering, the snake is irradiated with ultraviolet light and fed, adding preparations containing vitamin “E” to the food. Then the males and females are placed next to each other.
Reproduction
Approximately 50-60 days after mating, the females lay eggs, for which a ditch with sphagnum should be prepared, where they will lay their eggs. The clutch is removed and, together with the cage, placed in an incubator at a temperature of 27-29°C. . After 50-60 days, the eggs hatch and begin to feed after the first molt.
We emphasize that in the conditions of a home terrarium all this is easier to describe than to do, since the risk of losing the snake when putting it away for the winter is too great. In general, it is much easier to keep tropical snakes at home, which do not hibernate in their homeland, than any reptiles of the temperate zone.
right Water snake
The water snake is colored in olive or brownish tones with dark spots in a checkerboard pattern. Occasionally, completely black individuals are found. The belly is yellow or red, with black spots.
This one is more heat-loving and moisture-loving. It lives in Russia and Ukraine in the lower reaches of rivers flowing into the Caspian and Black Seas.
The main food in nature is small fish; it also eats tadpoles and frogs. Keeping a water snake in captivity is almost no different from keeping an ordinary snake. However, it requires that there be twice as much water in the aquaterrarium as there is land.
Already- a snake belonging to the class of mammals. Many of us are terribly afraid of snakes, but should we be afraid? common snake? Is it dangerous for humans and does it have poison? Today we will answer these questions, and also touch upon the snake’s habitat and find out what it eats in nature, and we will start with its characteristics.
Description of a common snake
Snake length 1 meter, but some individuals grow up to 1.5 meters. His main and characteristic peculiarity– bright spots on the back of the head. They can be orange, yellow and whitish. Quite rarely, only black snakes or faint spots are found, so it is quite easy to recognize the snake. Leather snakes are dark gray, black or light gray in color. Gray individuals may have dark spots. Belly The snake is light with a dark stripe from tail to neck. Body of a snake slender, and on some individuals you can see paired brushes, but not on all. Eyes the snakes are round, but there are snakes with “cat eyes”. Tail much shorter than the body, about 3-5 times, with a varied shape - sharp, steep, rounded. Visible throughout the body scales, some individuals have smooth skin, others have noticeable ribs. The snake has teeth on the top of its mouth, several teeth increase as the throat opens, some teeth small and motionless, in others they bend, there is also a forked language. Lifespan of a common grass snake in nature about 20 years, at home the figure remains the same.
Is the common snake poisonous and is it dangerous for humans?
Generally, snakes safe for humans. They do not know how to bite, but can scratch the skin, and if there is a bite, it is insignificant. Yes and ordinary When he sees a person, he tries to hide as quickly as possible; he flees rather than attacks. But if they are caught by surprise, they hiss and turn their heads as if they want to bite, but they rarely get bitten, and the bite itself heals very quickly. Already- a calm snake, but for the purpose of protection, it can shoot a white-yellow liquid from its teeth, which has an unpleasant odor, and if it does not scare away the observer, it opens its mouth and relaxes its body, feigning death. At this moment, you can see drops of blood from the throat, or he will simply regurgitate food out of fear. But if snake don't touch it, but you won't have to see all this.
WHAT DOES THE COMMON SNACK EAT, WHERE DOES IT LIVE AND KEEPING AT HOME?
What does the common grass snake eat in nature?
Snake's main diet- amphibians and fish. It feeds on frogs, tadpoles, and toads. In addition, snakes eat lizards, their eggs, mice, rats, moles, other rodents, insects, small birds, their eggs and chicks, bats, small squirrels, and even their own kind or other snakes. Already swallows prey whole because it does not have teeth or other devices to tear prey. If the lunch is small, then he will quickly finish the meal, but if the prey is large, he will have to deal with it for several hours, and after such a meal he can go without eating anything for two days. It can go without food for a long time, but it cannot live without water, and in hot weather it is easy to find it near bodies of water. On the land really stalks its prey, can sneak up on it for a long time in the water, and then suddenly pounce.
Habitat of the common grass snake
Snakes can be found near bodies of water, under a bridge, near a lake or pond. In addition, they like to settle next to people, choosing quiet and secluded places such as a basement, haystack, cellar, barn, in the roots or hollows of trees, in the garden, in firewood, in a pile of stones, in a vegetable garden and even in a pile of garbage . Snakes They love warm bedding and live next to poultry, laying their eggs there, but they will never go near large animals.
Habitat of the common grass snake– almost all of Russia, eastern Primorye, the borders of the Komi Republic, the border of Karelia. Almost all of Europe, and some individuals snakes They are also found in Africa, Central, South and North America, Australia, Asia, Cuba, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, and Oceania.
VIDEO: ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THE COMMON SNACK
IN THIS VIDEO, YOU WILL SEE AND LEARN HOW TO CORRECTLY KEEP A COMMON SNACK AT HOME
belongs to the class of real snakes. A distinctive feature of the animal is two “ears” on its head (two spots - orange and yellow or white). However, in each individual individual the spots are expressed differently - strongly, weakly or completely absent. Snakes are colored grey, black or brown; often the body of the animal contains a pattern in the form of stripes or spots. It is worth noting that females are always larger than males and their body length can reach 1.5 meters.
Already- a common inhabitant of river banks, swamps and other wet places. Is not fastest snake, but if necessary, it is able to quickly hide in the bushes or sneak away into a shelter. In our country, it is most often found in the south of the Far East, Siberia and throughout the European part. The animal leads a predominantly diurnal lifestyle, its activity depends on seasonal changes. Thus, the breeding season and the greatest activity of snakes occurs from the beginning of April to mid-September. As a rule, in the morning animals crawl out of their burrows to bask in the sun, and at dusk they return under snags, into shelters from branches, under foliage and cool down. In winter, snakes hibernate.
Like other types of snakes, it sheds its skin - it completely comes off the body during normal molting. It should be noted that before molting, snakes often refuse food and become more passive. In order to facilitate the molting process, it is recommended to maintain a sufficient level of humidity in the animal’s shelter.
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Of course, few people would think of calling a snake a pet, especially considering the fact that most snakes sold in pet stores and markets are caught in forests and swamps - that is, in the wild. Therefore, you should think carefully several times about the advisability of buying such an unusual pet and placing it in your home. After all, no living conditions, even very well organized ones, can compare with a wild habitat, and snakes most often die in the hands of inexperienced owners due to lack/excess of moisture and improper temperature.
Already ordinary content requires serious consideration, so if you decide to have such a “cute” pet in your home, you should approach the organization of its future habitat with all responsibility. So, let's look at the most important points. First, you need to purchase a long, spacious terrarium with a large pool, occupying a significant part of the entire space. The pond should be chosen in such a size that your pet can fit entirely in it - the animal needs it for drinking and bathing.
The top of the terrarium must be tightly covered with a net so that it does not escape. The bottom of the terrarium is laid with soil that has a high ability to retain moisture: sand or peat. You can also sprinkle the bottom with sand. In addition to the main soil, you should create an area of moss in one of the corners, into which the animal, if necessary, can burrow. In addition to all of the above, it is recommended to place scattering stones, all kinds of driftwood in the terrarium, and make shelters and shelters from well-fixed bark or branches.
It is very important to ensure that the temperature difference is maintained in the terrarium. It is necessary to place a heating lamp in one of the corners (or next to it), and place a driftwood or stone under it so that it can heat up its body. The daytime temperature in this corner of the terrarium should not exceed 35 degrees Celsius. In addition to a warm corner, you need to organize a dry, cool place where the animal can cool down - it is desirable that this place is equipped with a shelter and its temperature is approximately 22 degrees Celsius. The average temperature of the rest of the terrarium during the day should be in the range of 22 to 26 degrees Celsius.
An equally important task is the correct terrarium lighting. A good option is to purchase a special lamp with UV rays, but in the warm season you can limit yourself to regular sunbathing. At night, the terrarium does not need to be illuminated or heated, since the animal sleeps in a shelter at this time. In addition to temperature, it is necessary to constantly maintain the level of humidity in the terrarium - for this you can regularly spray moss and soil.
Feeding the snake.
It prefers to eat live food, mainly rodents, frogs or small fish. Please note that the food served to your pet must move, otherwise, most likely, he will not even touch the treat. Therefore, when keeping an animal at home, you will have to regularly purchase small mice, tree frogs, aquarium fish and, as mentioned above, feed them alive. Some individuals also do not disdain worms, snails, moths and insects. It should be noted that some owners still manage to feed their pets euthanized food, but this rarely happens.
Snakes are given food 1 or 2 times a week, and large individuals feed even less frequently. Once a month, the animal needs to be given special mineral supplements or crushed eggshells. For these purposes, you can also periodically add mineral water to the drinking bowl.
Snake care.
The main care for a snake consists of maintaining the most optimal humidity and temperature for the animal in the terrarium, as well as creating periods of hibernation and activity and proper feeding. It is necessary to clean and clean the terrarium every week, and once a month to dip the snake in a 1% solution of potassium permanganate in order to remove mites. In this case, you should not wet the animal’s head in the solution.
It should be noted that snakes quickly get used to their owners, cease to be afraid of them and can even go into their arms - unlike wild snakes, which, when trying to pick them up, begin to threaten: hiss like poisonous snakes, make sharp thrusts of their heads. By the way, he bites very rarely. Its main method of defense is the release of a strong-smelling liquid from the intestines, and if the stench does not have any effect on the offender, then the animal simply pretends to be dead. The life expectancy of the common grass snake under comfortable living conditions is about 20 years.
Is it already hibernating?
In order for your pet snake to hibernate, you should gradually, over the course of one month, reduce the heating period and daylight hours in the fall from 12 to 4 hours - this provokes a state of hibernation in the animal. After the lighting supply is completely stopped and the temperature in the terrarium drops to 10 degrees Celsius, it can spend almost 2 months in hibernation, which subsequently has a beneficial effect on the animal’s reproduction and its activity.
Author - Vasily Dyadichko.
I’ll tell you about my experience in keeping and breeding these snakes, maybe it will be useful to someone.
I kept and repeatedly successfully bred 2 species of real snakes - the common Natrix natrix(including subspecies N.n. persa) and water snake Natrix tessellata. Both species are very common (in some places even widespread) in the Odessa region, so catching them was not difficult.
At first, both species lived in groups of 2 males per 1 female in terrariums 70x40x40 cm, then I kept two such groups (3 snakes of each species) in a terrarium 120x45x50, then only a pair of water snakes lived there. There were no conflicts between them; these snakes can be safely kept in groups. They often form large clusters in nature.
The largest of my snakes were about 120-130 cm long (both species).
The soil in the terrarium was fine gravel (fraction 5-10 mm) - after reading the article by A.V. When talking about nonrodies, I was afraid that the snakes might swallow something along with their food and used this particular type of soil, since in that article it was recommended as the safest. I can fully confirm the validity of this opinion; pebbles of this size are heavy enough to fall off the wet skin of a fish or amphibian when it is swallowed by a snake. During the years (1996-2007) that I kept snakes, not one of them ever swallowed particles of soil with food.
Spacious pools were installed in the terrariums (in the smaller ones - 35x25x10 cm, in the larger ones - 40x30x15 cm), the snakes spend a lot of time in them. The pool was always placed in a cold corner. Below the pools there was an empty space, loosely filled with sphagnum, which the snakes used as shelter. Other shelters included pieces of bark and cavities under flat stones located in different parts of the terrarium (so that the snakes could choose a shelter with the desired temperature and humidity). Periodically (once a day or once every 2-3 days) I sprayed the terrarium with water from a spray bottle.
I used all sorts of stones and driftwood as decorative elements; at first I planted plants in the terrariums with scindapsus, syngonium, tradescantia and chlorophytum; later I abandoned living plants, although they grew well there. In the greened terrariums, the lighting source was fluorescent lamps with a power of 20-40 W. Heating was carried out with incandescent lamps. In terrariums without living plants, I did not install special lighting lamps; I limited myself to an incandescent heating lamp. Its power was selected so that the temperature under it was 30-40 degrees. During the hottest time (July-August), the heating was not turned on, because... It was already quite warm in my house (see the description of my experience with copperheads in another topic on this forum). Under the heating, several wide flat stones lay on the ground and there was a snag with spreading branches; the snakes basked either on these branches, or under them, on the stones.
Snakes are diurnal snakes, so they need ultraviolet rays, I simply exposed mine to the sun in a mesh bag near an open window in the room.
From November to March, I placed my snakes for the winter in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator, in boxes with sphagnum moss. Preparations for wintering began in October and were carried out in the following order:
The first week - cessation of feeding, snakes are kept under normal heating and lighting conditions (8-12 hours a day);
The second week - a gradual reduction in the operating time of the heating and lighting lamp (if there was one), by the end of the week the heating and lighting were no longer turned on;
Third week - snakes live at room temperature (18-22 degrees) and are content with light from the window;
Fourth week - in the first 3-4 days, the snakes are in the terrarium, with the window open at night (the temperature drops to 14-15 degrees), then in wintering boxes on the loggia with the windows constantly open (temperature is about 10-12 degrees). In the last days of October - the first days of November, I put the boxes with snakes in the refrigerator.
They left the winter quarters in March. First, I took the wintering boxes out onto the loggia for 3-5 days, but with the windows closed (8-12 degrees), then I placed the snakes in an unheated terrarium, after another 3-4 days I turned on the heating and started giving food.
I used frogs and toads as food for common snakes; some of them also ate fish (gobies) in small quantities. My snakes ignored the fire-bellied toads. My water snakes never ate frogs, but they willingly ate toads; I mainly fed them fish (gobies, crucian carp, loaches, bleak, and less often - silverside and pelingas). He gave toads to water snakes occasionally, more in the spring, for variety. I gave only live amphibians, and both live and frozen fish. All my water snakes easily began to take frozen fish, literally from the second or third feeding.
Food was given once every 5-7 days, depending on the size and condition of the snake and the amount of food eaten. Snakes are very voracious, especially water snakes, but their gluttony is largely compensated by their high mobility and fertility - my females almost always laid 2 clutches a year, several times there were even 3 clutches. Therefore, I was not afraid to overfeed my snakes, although I gave the males slightly less food than the females. On average, a male grass snake 60-80 cm long received from me per week 1-2 frogs or toads with a body length of 4-5 cm or 3-4 smaller ones. For a female of the same size, I gave 2-3 larger amphibians or 5-6 smaller ones, respectively. Large female common snakes received 2-3 large frogs or toads per week.
Male water snakes of medium size (60-80 cm) received 3-4 fish 5-8 cm long or 1-2 larger ones per week, females - 5-6 or 3-4, respectively. Large females of this species (more than a meter long) ate 3-5 fish 10-15 cm long per week.
In my opinion, breeding common and water snakes is very simple. After removing them from wintering, I put males and females in different terrariums and waited for the first molt of all individuals, then I put the snakes (males to females) and they immediately began to mate. Matings were repeated many times until the second moult, then stopped. According to my (and not only my) observations, placing two males on one female significantly increases their sexual activity, they mutually stimulate each other.
Pregnancy in my conditions lasted 32-50 days; to lay eggs, I placed a flat box with an entrance on the side, filled with moist sphagnum, in a warm corner of the terrarium. The record number of eggs laid by a female grass snake with a body length of 130 cm at one time was 35 (not counting unfertilized eggs). The largest female water snakes laid up to 25-30 eggs. It is well known that snakes can delay the laying of eggs that are ready for this for up to a month, hence the variation in the duration of pregnancy and incubation periods. I carried out the incubation in a homemade incubator from a 30-liter tank. 10 cm of water was poured into the bottom of the tank; there were plastic boxes with eggs in it, buried in damp sphagnum moss and covered on top with pieces of bark or plywood. If the moss started to dry out, I moistened it with a spray bottle. The top of the tank was covered with a homemade plywood lid with a small mesh window for ventilation and a hole for a wire on which an incandescent lamp with a power of 25-40 W was suspended. The eggs were inspected once every 7-10 days. The temperature in the incubator ranged from 25 to 30 degrees; I incubated the eggs of the second clutch, which fell during the hottest time of the year, without heating; room temperature was enough. The average duration of incubation for me was about 35 days (minimum - 26, maximum - 48). The yield of young animals was often 100% and never less than 50%. I released most of the young ones into the snakes’ natural habitats, and used some of them as food for copperheads.
Repeated matings took place without any stimulation and I rarely had the opportunity to observe them. More often than not, I simply discovered that the female was pregnant again. The second and, especially, the third clutches were always smaller in size than the first, often containing more unfertilized eggs.
According to my observations, snakes are very active snakes; they spend a lot of time actively moving around the terrarium, swimming in a pond, crawling along snags. The negative side of this feature is the very rapid contamination of the glass of the terrarium. The snake climbs into the pond, then stands on the glass, stretches out to its full length until it falls to the side, while moving its wet body along the glass (in the manner of a car wiper). As a result, all glasses become dirty very quickly and have to be washed constantly. Otherwise, in my opinion, these are very interesting and pleasant animals to keep.
If you dream of a pet that is more unusual than cats, dogs and fish, which will surprise guests, do not rush to get exotic snakes or spiders. Think about such an ordinary inhabitant of our latitudes as the snake - he is as beautiful and interesting to watch as any other snake, but at the same time does not pose an immediate threat to the life and health of his owners.
The modern animal lover can easily find all the information on how to keep a snake at home on the Internet. In turn, a competent consultant in a specialized store will help you organize this knowledge and make a complete list of what you need.
How to keep a snake at home and what you need for this
A common or aquatic snake can also feel quite comfortable in captivity. First of all, you need to choose and arrange a terrarium (long and spacious), which would have:
- constant access to water for bathing and drinking in the form of a large, stable reservoir;
- soil that retains moisture for a long time (peat, sand, etc.);
- a large stone, which will be needed during the molting period;
- wet moss, driftwood or other objects behind which it can hide;
- a heater covered with a protective plastic mesh to protect the snake’s skin from accidental burns.
Frogs, newts, toads, fish, mice can serve as food, and sometimes bloodworms, insects, and snails may be liked. The main difficulty is that snakes prefer live food, so you will have to move the offered food until the snake pays attention to it. It is rarely possible to train a pet to eat food that has already been killed and you should not count on it. However, snakes need to be fed no more than 3-4 times a week.
How does he behave at home?
Snakes are non-aggressive, if you don’t frighten them, they bite extremely rarely. The owners recognize them, get used to them, and can even be picked up (though only for the reason that it is warm around the person). The pet's mode of activity is as follows:
- active during the day, sleeps at night;
- Sheds at home once a year, just like in the natural environment;
- The approach of the molting period can be determined by the characteristic clouding of the eyes and changes in behavior.
In the cold season, in a house with central heating, you will need special shelter and maintaining a low temperature (which, like the light intensity, should be gradually reduced in advance) so that you can spend at least 2 months in a state of “hibernation.”
Care and safety rules
The home must have zones with different temperature conditions:
- a place for warming up (30-35°), where a special lamp is installed;
- a cool corner (about 22°) where the snake can hide and cool down.
In addition to feeding, the responsibilities of the owners include:
- regular cleaning and replacement of water in the “pool”;
- maintaining a high level of humidity (for this, soil and moss are sprayed).
Nimble snakes are distinguished by amazing tenacity and perseverance when it comes to finding a loophole to escape. When ordering a terrarium, pay attention to the strength and quality of the mesh that will be used as a lid. In itself, this type of snake is safe for humans, but not everyone can immediately determine that this is a harmless snake and not a poisonous viper. It is better to exclude unexpected encounters by limiting the pet’s location to a terrarium.
Depending on how they are kept, snakes can live at home for quite a long time (up to 20 years). To create decent living conditions for your snake, it is recommended to order food, equipment and other supplies from specialized stores. You can save time and money by purchasing everything you need online, for example, in the online store "
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