Western Diamondback — Fact Sheet

Crotalus atrox · Western Diamondback Rattlesnake

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• One adult: minimum 180 x 90 x 75 cm; larger for exceptional specimens.
• Locked primary enclosure inside an access-controlled, escape-resistant room.
• Full-body shift box or two lockable compartments; routine work only with the snake secured behind a barrier.
• 8-12 cm compactable soil-and-clay or soil-and-sand; paper during quarantine.
• Avoid loose pure sand, cedar, unstable rock and any gap that could release a neonate.

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Tight warm and cool hides; one must be a lockable shift.
• Anchored cork, low branches and broad stable rock.
• Local humid retreat for shedding; the main floor remains dry.
• Stable water bowl serviced from protected access.
• Clear sight line for a complete visual count before every opening.

💡 Lighting

• Bright visible daylight; 10-12-hour photoperiod with modest seasonal change.
• UVB not essential, but a measured low-output Ferguson Zone 1 area is recommended.
• Full shade in every temperature zone.
• Guard lamps, cables and probes; no coloured night lamps.
• Follow the lamp maker’s output and replacement schedule and verify at snake level.

🌡️ Temperature

• Basking spot: 32-35 °C

• Warm zone: 24-29 °C

• Cool zone: 21-24 °C

• Night: 18-23 °C

• Use guarded overhead heat on a thermostat; measure both surface and air.

• Avoid hot rocks, unguarded heaters and a uniformly hot enclosure.

💧 Humidity & water

• General humidity: 30-50% with good ventilation.
• Shed retreat: 50-65%, local and controllable.
• Fresh water at all times; clean immediately after contamination.
• Avoid routine whole-enclosure spraying, damp substrate and condensation.

🐁 Diet

Feed routinely:

• Appropriately sized frozen-thawed mice or rats producing only a modest bulge.
• Adults usually every 14-21 days; juveniles every 7-14 days.

In moderation:

• Larger prey only when body size justifies it; extend the interval after a large meal.

Avoid:

• Live rodents, oversized meals, weekly adult feeding and movement to an open feeding tub.

Supplements:

• None for complete whole-vertebrate prey.

💤 Brumation

• Not routine care; only for healthy, established adults in a planned breeding programme.
• Typical managed range: 10-16 °C after fasting and confirmation that the gut is empty.
• Do not cool juveniles, new arrivals, thin, dehydrated, gravid or ill animals.
• Use redundant temperature monitoring and veterinary oversight.

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Wheeze, bubbles, open-mouth breathing or raised head → possible respiratory disease.
• Wet red or blistered belly scales → dermatitis, wet substrate or poor ventilation.
• Retained shed or eye caps → hydration, humidity, mites or systemic problem.
• Regurgitation → prey too large, disturbance, wrong temperature or disease.
• Heavy folds and buried spine → obesity.
• Any bite → immediate emergency care; no cutting, suction, ice, shock or tourniquet.

Shift and lock the snake before veterinary assessment; never attempt hands-on home treatment.