Advice on Common Egg-eater (Dasypeltis scabra)

Advice on Common Egg-eater (Dasypeltis scabra)

Postby Fooble » Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:49 pm

I Just recently got myself my first Egg-eater (Dasypeltis scabra) he is aprox. 45cm
and i am assured he did eat last week a few quail eggs, and was told that he probably would not eat again till after winter, when birds eggs are naturally available naturally.

Is this true?

And can any one provide me some first hand information on keeping this specie with the best results?

Oh and here are a few pics...

Image

Image

Image

Image
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Postby Bushviper » Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:51 pm

That guy is way too small to eat quail eggs. You would be better off trying to get budgie and finch eggs for him.
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Postby Fooble » Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:58 pm

Thats what i thought :/

i actually have a budgie egg in his enclosure now
but hasn't shown any interest in it.
He also just sits on the heated side all day curled up.
What are their feeding habits like?
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Postby alexander » Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:42 pm

They possibly meant chinese quail, which are about 1 third smaller.
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Postby Fooble » Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:52 pm

Yeah thats what i meant and the only kind i am familiar with, they are common birds to keep.

the eggs are aprox. thumb size ( i think i have small thumbs)
those are them.

http://www.nzbirdz.co.nz/imager.php?img ... ension=300
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Postby Bushviper » Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:30 am

You get large quail eggs which are used in the catering industry as well and they are about half the size of a pullet egg.

The snake is obviously wild caught and primed to sleep for winter. Do a search on this site for articles on hibernation and also brumation and have a look how to go about cooling the snake down for winter. When summer starts then the snake will be ready to start feeding again.

Make sure the eggs you feed are fresh because when they go on a feeding binge they will eat a rotten egg if it is placed amongst good eggs without checking. This will kill him.
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Postby the fox » Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:57 pm

I have a trio of button quail in my aviary, i would say you should breed them inside because they generally don't breed when its cold.
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Postby Fooble » Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:14 pm

Oh yeah? thanks for that,
how often to yours breed?
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Postby the fox » Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:50 pm

Ive had them for like 5 months and only five eggs once,
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Re: Advice on Common Egg-eater (Dasypeltis scabra)

Postby Aconite » Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:05 am

HI again Fooble,
Lovely snake!
I had a small scabra some years ago when I lived Pretoria. She was wild caught and so also had a natural cycle that I had to fit in with. She generally stopped feeding for months at a time. She was very picky about the eggs she ate and would refuse many placed in her cage. Usually the ones she refused proved to be either dry or dodgy.

I am feeding my small cb medici and atra on finch and budgie eggs. The medici has only ever been tube fed and is so far refusing to feed on the real eggs. I hope she will try one soon as I am not going to tube feed her if I can help it.
The atra is a year old and refused the finch eggs and ate 2 larger budgie eggs. I placed the eggs on some nest I found (which I nuked in the microwave) and the atra got really excited and ate immediately.
The medici sleeps in her nest, but wont eat.

Good luck with your scabra! Do post pics and progress reports!

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Re: Advice on Common Egg-eater (Dasypeltis scabra)

Postby Fooble » Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:30 am

Hey Aconite,
just note this thread is pretty old.
No longer have the snake :-)

So there wont be any progress hehe.
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Re: Advice on Common Egg-eater (Dasypeltis scabra)

Postby Aconite » Tue Mar 10, 2009 2:39 pm

Oh boy!!!
I am sooo asleep!!! I just clicked on the first link in the line of threads and assumed it was new. Need more coffee.
Cheers!
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