Keeping and Breeding of Bull Snake
Pituophis catenifer sayi
 

(by Bernd Skubowius)

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With the name bull snake some people occure a great snake with an imposing defense behavior. However, the behavior doesn't apply to all sayi, special captive bred animals often get hand tame.
For many years I deal with the nonpoisonous snake genus Pituophis and I keep many subspecieses of this genus in my terrarium. Also some colourforms of the subspecies sayi live and breed in my terraria and I want to introduce in the variety in behavior and coloring of this snake to this article.

Distribution:
The bull snakes lives in the middle of North America from the south of Canada to the north of Mexico.
They live in various areas like pine woods up to mountain landscapes of half deserts, farm country and river valleys. It occure in heights between 0 mt and max. 2700 mt. The snake inhabits often the tunnels of gopher rats and other rodents, also it lives under stones or wood.

Appearance:
41-66 of deep brown saddle spots which brighten a little bit in the body middle are on the back of this firm snake. There also are populations with throughout black saddle markings in the north of the distribution area. There already is an astonishing frequency range at the natural primary colors: sand-colored up to the firmly red, white till deep brown. The sayi usually have saddle markings but also striped and patternless animals have been found in nature. Color mutations like amelanistic, hypomelanistic, snow a.s.o. still come to this.
The average lengh lies at about 1,5-2 m, the maximum size is 2.75 m. 1.5 m only seldom exceed by animals in the northern distribution but the average size gains in to to the south.
The young animals look like similar to the parents and them insists a life time of about 15-20 year before.

Behaviour:
The bull snakes are mainly day active and mainly in morning or afternoon they could be watched in biotope. The hot hours of the day are avoided, the animals hide undergroundly usually there. If the summer temperatures get too high, the bull snake transfers her main activity till the time of the sundown until the first night hours. In the biotop it feeds of various rodents and sometimes birds and their eggs. Smaller bull snakes seldom eat also lizards.
If the animals are been surprised and disturbed, it shows the receipt's indicated defense behavior: The neck becomes s-shape and the is head pulled back, the animals hiss quite loudly and with the tip of the tail vibrate on the groundsoil. If they nevertheless approaches further, they bite. At first it bites with a not full open mouth mostly.
The agression resistance sinks, if the surroundings temperature increases.
Many bull snakes become hand tamely in terraria after a couple of months and with captive bred animals can be handeld also much better than with animals captured in the wild. The compatibility with other Pituophis and other snakes is well generally.

I describe the keeping and breeding conditions for my animals at home followingly.
And there this only a way often mentioned. But there are still other methods which lead to this same aim: a good keeping and healthy captive bred animals.

The adult snakes live in pairs or one by one with me depending on possibility and temperament. A group of a male and two females already cohabited quite easily with me, too. The keeping of several males I can't recommend. In many cases it prepares the males stress and they will have conduct fights (also outside the mating time). Consequences of such problems can be: Food denial, vomiting and vulnerability for illnesses of every sort particularly in the digestion section.

Most bull snakes live well and long in a dry terraria with some hiding-places and one waterbowl. Many adulte bull snakes no longer like to climb but a couple of roots and high hiding-place are assumed by most animals with pleasure. My animal only very seldom baths.
The type of the groundsoil is second-rate here. It is more important, that absorbently is the groundsoil, makes no dust and isn't with eaten at the feeding. Or what can be harmlessly eaten with the food. I work with chopping shaving, pellets of pressed straw or earth/sand-mixtures. The chopping shaving still causes most problems at the feeding to me: It is just with eaten easily by the great Pituophis and shall already have killed some petsnakes by damage done to the digestion section so. To feed outside the terrariums in small boxes is better then.

Basic sizes of the terraria are adapted to the size of the animals, 1-1,5 m terraria lenght for 2 adult animals should already be. But in much smaller "american terraria" the animals live exactly so long and reproduce regularly.
The humidity by water bowl lies with 50-60 % in the terraria and causes the animals no problems. If you sprays some water in preshed, the animals shed without problems.
My terraria illumination are 3-7 W energy economy bulb or an18 W luminescent material tube depend on the right terraria temperature. For the bull snakes the siuteble terraria temeratur is much more important than an intensive illumination. The enclosures have a underground heath in the size 1/3 of the ground or gets heat from the terraria below. The examination duration in the summer is 14 h in my terraria.

The temperature claims for most sayi as followed: the animals prosper at approx. 26-27 ° C terraria temperature well. An additional place for heating up at the morning or digesting should be available. After about 30° C terraria temperature the snakes become increasingly more restless and more aggressive but the animals must live with that at our summer temperatures...
All animals durably don't stand less than 26° C of day temperatures equally well. But I have heard of animals which still coped with 24° C provided that they could warm themselves up in the morning, too.

Food:
My fully-grown Pituophis get for food every 10-14 days well. In the rearing or with animals which must eat more I feed smaller portions depending on need up to 2 times in the week.
In my enclosures bull snakes get mice, rats, young rabbit, hamster and chick.
Also however, some animals take only one type of food or they change these. Particularly after rat feeding it comes to food denial sometimes, if they then get only mice offered.
Often I put thawed frost food, some animals however insist on living feeding or fresh dead (mice, rats). I admit a drop of multivitamin preparation to the food at every 2-3rd feeding.
You must supervise the feeding of several animals simultaneously, because it comes to bites at food envy or at the worst inadvertently to cannibalism otherwise. Feeding every snake separate is the better way.
The food amounts are often great, 6 chicks or 2 medium-sized rats are normal for animals between 1.5 and 2 m. The animals digest also quite fast their food, after 3 days excrement is often set down, as of the 5th day the most have appetite again.

Hibernation:
I lower the examination duration and radiator gradually at the beginning of October within 2 month down to 5 h. I adjust feeding as of middle of November and after the evacuation of the bowels start with hibernation in beginning of December. In their lived terrarien the animals stay, only radiator and light are switch off and I open the window of the room. I strive for hibernation temperatures around the 10° C.
But from earlier experience I know that a brunation period around the 18-20 ° C with no heat and light leads to a mating readiness and fertility in next spring. My young animals don't hibernate in the first year at all, they are kept under the same conditiones and feed further in a 2nd room for teraria. Through this the animals grow and prosper better and more fastly.
After hibernation I start slowly with some hour heath and light again. After another 2 weeks I reach 8 h heating and light again.
The animals then eat again regularly.
2 months after the hibernation there are 14 h light again.

Mating and Egglaying:
Depending on mentality of the animals it comes to more or less strong conduct fights between the males in the breeding groups usually in March/April. Most after the first shed of the female the male copulate the first time. If the couples don't already permanently cohabit anyway, I put hours or on a daily basis the female to the male now repeatedly.
In the normal case the female is held tight by a nape of the neck bite at the copulation. After the successful mating it would be better to convert the male into one differently terrarium. The nascent mother could be looked after so still better. The preshed of egglaying uses about 6 weeks after the successful mating with the female. I put a flat plastik box in the terraria with damp foam material pieces for the preshed and for egglaying now. The one loophole is cut into the lid. Most animals immediately accept this box and after thorough examination disappear into this. They leave the box to which they return there again to the shed once again. The egglaying starts with about 1-10 days to the shed. The sayi lay quite big eggs and possible clutch sizes of 4-25 eggs they have. Most clutches of eggs of my animals consist of 5-13 eggs and these often have the size of hen's eggs at my 2 m sayi.
The eggs are put into an incubator and hatched at 27° C and 90-100 % humidity. The average breeding duration up to the hatch is 63-67 days. The young snakes then have a length of about 35-45 cm.
In rare cases there could be some weeks later a 2nd mating of the female. The 2nd egglaying be carried out after another 6-8 weeks.
One of the prerequisite for this is a good feeding after the first egglaying, an other is a stress poor attitude.
It came to the "doubleclutching" only at Pituophis catenifer annectens at my animals. In principle, it also should be possible at best conditions but at sayi.

Rearing:
The first shed will be about 10 days after the hatch. The fist food in the form of young mice or nest young rats I offer first after this shed. The hatchlings go willingly to the food, food objectors are the absolute exception. Now I feed outside the shedperiods every 4- 7 days 1-2 smaller rodents per snake.
The animals could grew up one by one or in small groups. My young Pituophis live one by one in small terraria adapted to the size of the snake. So you can check food and health with low effort and so you avoids inner species stress. The facilities consist beginning for a ground soil of paper towel, a hiding-place and a water bowl. Cork oak bark or shelter bowls from tone have proved themselves with me as hiding-places. I bring the facilities into line with the great terraria after 6-12 months.

Sexually maturity:
After the 2nd winter there is a good time to the put together of the animals. If the snakes could eat much within the first 1.5 years, they get sexually mature usually in the 2nd year. Provided that the females have reached the adultsize, you can use them for breeding now. If the females haven't however grown over yet, in any case one should wait another year with the copulation. Otherwise it can come to egglaying problems because Pituophis eggs are quite big and sometimes still match not by the cloaca at the egglaying. Furthermore fertility slows down the growth the female, so that these animals in the size and clutchsize will remain from animals without an egglaying in the 2. year for my experience.

Summary:
The bull snake is an interesting, grateful petsnake which there is in a lot of pretty colors. If her basis needs are fulfilled and you offer it a little quiet and safety, this snake lives healthily with you for years. It doesn't have any special food claims and is good to breed. The rearing also prepares no problems, nest young rodents are taken with pleasure.

Bernd Skubowius
www.pinesnake.de