Red-tailed Green Ratsnake — Fact Sheet

Gonyosoma oxycephalum · Red-tailed Green Ratsnake · Rotschwanznatter

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Indoor, locked, tall enclosure; minimum 150 × 75 × 150 cm for one adult.
• Increase for a female over 2 m; seal every service port.
• Substrate: 5-8 cm clean soil/coir, bark and leaf litter; paper during quarantine.
• Avoid aromatic/dusty wood and permanently saturated bark.

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Thick horizontal and diagonal branches, cork tubes and elevated shelves.
• Dense foliage and snug hides at ground, middle and canopy levels.
• Humid sphagnum refuges at more than one height.
• Large stable water bowl; fix every support for adult weight and speed.

💡 Lighting

• Low-level linear UVB recommended; shaded gradient about 0-1.5 UVI.
• Bright full-spectrum visible light over planted areas.
• Position lamps outside or behind guards.
• Photoperiod: 11-13 hours; replace UVB by measured output/manufacturer guidance.

🌡️ Temperature

• Basking spot: 29-30 °C

• Warm zone: 24-28 °C

• Cool zone: 23-25 °C

• Night: 23-25 °C

• Prolonged air above 30 °C is unsafe.

• Use a thermostat and probes at several heights.

• Do not use warm stagnant air to raise humidity; no temperate brumation.

💧 Humidity & water

• Ventilated daily cycle: 65-85%, rising after evening misting and partly drying by day.
• Humid hides: 80-90% locally during shedding.
• Large clean bowl and droplets on clean leaves; change water daily.
• Avoid both saturated stagnant housing and dry heated air.

🐁 Diet

Feed freely:

• Frozen-thawed mice or small rats; juveniles weekly, adults every 10-14 days.

In moderation:

• Captive-bred quail for variety; prey around the snake’s widest section.

Avoid:

• Wild birds/lizards, live rodents, oversized meals and repeated provoke-feeding.

Supplements:

• Whole prey needs no routine powder; feeding intervention needs veterinary direction.

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Wheezing, mucus or open-mouth breathing → respiratory disease, stress or poor ventilation.
• Incomplete shed and sunken eyes → dehydration.
• Blisters or discoloured ventral scales → wet contaminated substrate.
• Refusal with weight loss → import stress, parasites, infection or insufficient security.
• Regurgitation → oversized meal, excess heat, handling or systemic disease.
• Nose injury → repeated collision with exposed glass.
• Egg loss → overheated, over-wet or unmonitored incubation.

Use a reptile-experienced veterinarian for imported stock, breathing signs, dehydration or sustained weight loss.