Elaphe climacophora — Fact Sheet

Elaphe climacophora · Elaphe climacophora

Full care guide and sources

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Adult enclosure: 200 × 100 × 120 cm (length × width × height).
• Increase the length if the snake cannot straighten fully; the stated dimensions are a planning example, not a limit for larger adults.
• Substrate planning depth: 10 cm
• Housing: One animal per enclosure

🪨 Substrate and furnishings

Provide floor space and low, stable climbing structures for this active rat snake. Add warm and cool hides and visual cover between them. Secure doors, ventilation gaps and cable openings; heavy furnishings must not shift onto the snake.

💡 Lighting

Use a regular day-night cycle with seasonal adjustment for this temperate rat snake. UVB is optional, but shade and cooler retreats are required if it is used. Do not use visible night lights. Avoid lamps that dry small enclosures or overheat retreats.

🌡️ Temperature

• Basking spot: 28-30 °C

• Daytime air: 24-27 °C

• Cool zone: 20-23 °C

• Night: 18-22 °C

• Clear gradient required; the animal must be able to move between warm, cool, and hidden zones

• Measure basking surfaces with an infrared thermometer and ambient zones with digital probes

• Avoid heat rocks and unguarded heat sources

💧 Humidity and water

Target humidity and water: 50-70% with good ventilation and a lightly moist shed hide. Fresh water should always be available in a stable dish appropriate to the animal’s size. Avoid stagnant wet air. Chronic dryness causes bad sheds or dehydration; chronic wet substrate causes skin, scale, mold, or respiratory problems depending on the animal.

🪳 Feeding

Feed frozen-thawed mice or small rats; chicks only as occasional variety for large adults. Size meals to the animal, not to appetite alone. Hatchlings eat smaller meals more often; adults usually eat less often and should be kept in lean, muscular condition. Offer appropriately sized prey, remove uneaten prey promptly, and avoid handling snakes for at least 48 hours after meals.

🩺 Health — warning signs

Common problems include dehydration, retained shed, burns or overheating, mites or parasites, injuries from escapes or unstable furnishings, refusal to feed with weight loss, and stress from exposure or poor security. Warning signs include wheezing, bubbles at the nostrils, open-mouth breathing, repeated regurgitation, retained shed, swelling, twisting posture, sudden lethargy, or repeated escape attempts. Consult a reptile- or exotic-animal veterinarian for severe weakness, injury, breathing signs, swelling, repeated regurgitation, retained shed, or prolonged refusal to feed.