Bungarus Keeping.. not too popular?

Hi,

I've been on this site for awhile now, and noticed that there do not seem to be a lot of people keeping Bungarus. Is there a particular reason for this, or are people just not posting much on them?
Just wondering.

Thanks,

Kelly I think it's probably mostly to do with availability combined with being shy and ophiophagic makes them a difficult choice

That would make sense. There are some really beautiful ones though. Thank you:)

I have keeped shortly B.multicinctus.
But to thought that all Bungarus would be ophiophagus, is not so clear thing, example there is some papers that B.multicintus do eat in wild (sorry, no paper info, because im not at home) plenty of fish, similarity as Barbatulas.

My multicinctus was also very keen about earthworms, similar way as my M.xanthina yongster was in crickets her early days. They was wery young and small ones, and big loss with them was hard winter that did broke my apartment waterpipes and small catastrophy with animals was started with temperature loss, but that is another story..

But still; i did mostly of time force feed them with cornsnake pieces.
Anyway, im not suprised if future would show that they would eat plenty of invertebrate, when they are young. I couldnt try that enough, because i did get snakes to Finland, in late autum and loss them several months after that, and my plan was try these things with our native invertables.

Hello everyone,

I have kept several Bungarus sp. (B. multicinctus, B. candidus, B. caeruleus, B. flaviceps) for some time and beside of the B. falviceps which was in bad shape and died shortly after arrival, all of them fed on rodents without any problem. The story of Bungarus sp. being strictly ophiophagus is simply not true. Even fresh wild caught animals (if in good health and shape!) feed in most cases readily on mice, chicken or fish. Their reputation of being hard to keep alive in captivity is strongly exaggerated and is probably the reason for kraits being seldom seen in collections. This is also the reason why they are seldom imported. Nearly every exporter in Southeast Asia has them on their price lists.
But it is true, that they are mostly hiding during the day and only become active at night.
Just in case you play with the thought to get one: Keep in mind that all Bungarus sp. (beside Bungarus fasciatus, which has a moderately toxic venom but a large amount of it) have one of the most toxic snake venoms and some animals I kept in the past were very quick to bite in every direction when being disturbed, no matter if it was bright day or night. All kraits have a strike length of at least half of the body length. The bite direction was just random or in the direction where the snakes feels the air flow comes from. The eye sight seems to be quite underdeveloped and Bungarus sp. orientate mostly by olfactory sense.
Last but not least: All kraits I kept were a pain in the a.. when trying to lifting them up with a hook. If you keep all this in mind and being extra cautious with these animals they can be easily maintained.

Best regards

Frank

Very interesting, Frank, thank You!
Wipes away some "knowledge" that could be read so often. In fact I've never ever seen a krait except on photos.
Why is it so difficult to hookhandle them? Are they so nervous?
Regards,
Guenter

Thanks:) Are there any that are known to be exclusive snake feeders, and is scent manipulation involved when feeding rodents? We don't have any antivenom here, and they would throw me in jail for keeping them where I live, so I won't be keeping any:( I think Klaus had some at one time, but not sure if he still has them. Anyway, thanks to all for the info.

Hi at all: Yes Frank is right, it´s not very easy to work with them. I´ll keep also some of them, all the species Frank listed, without flaviceps, thats depends on the stricly opgiophag feeding behaviour. But I´ll keeped B. fasciatus, they feed very good snakes, but not all kind of them.
I have read an article, that there was an single speciemen that has feed on mices, so I was in hope to bring this species to become a micefeeder - no succes! Sometimes they have acceped mices or rats, but only one or two times when I put them in fresh skins from asian ratsnakes. I was lucky and bought some gravied B. candidus and B. faciatus, the offsprings from candidus feeds after a wile mices or parts of them. From the fasciatus only one has feed onece a mice, after this nothing than snakes. forcefeeding them is very diffic. All fasciatus died within a year, some of the candidus was harder and grow up.
To keep them is intresting, but you will not often seen your snakes. Only my candidus (regulars black & with ringed and the ,,javanicus´´ solid black form) came out, when they smell mices. Than this slowly snake displays a complete other behaviour - hungry they are very fast, bite in everything thats around them. I use hooks for the bigger ones and have had no bigger problems to bring them from one container to an other. For the smaler ones I use leather gloves.
When you aske me if I will keep them again I will say yes!

Its very interesting to read experiences with Bungarus sp.
Mostly because here in internet, is not much caresheet information to read about them.
I also agreed, that when they do feel nervous or been hungry, or if there is must handling situation: snakes can be truly fast fligt ones.
And as Peter did write, there is not much control use with young ones using hooks.
Id did use good success in forcefeeding situations with myself as a customise foam part.

In the past 12 years or so we kept several specimen of Bungarus caeruleus, multicinctus, candidus, sindanus and fasciatus, and we were lucky enough to captive-breed B. caeruleus twice. I can confirm and underscore what Frank said above. By and large, except perhaps for B. fasciatus that often comes as a parasite-loaded pure snake eater when offered on the pet market, they are easy to maintain on frozen-thawed mice, and in my opinion they are even easy to breed, only that people may shy away from trying for fear of cannibalism. Actually, in all these years we never had an incident where pairs of kraits were having trouble with one another. A further reason for the low popularity of these snakes among Herpetoculturists may be that the animals are very secretive and rarely ever seen in the terrarium. Anyway, I like them a lot and recommend them to (experienced) venomous snake keepers.

Here are some of my references:

Observations and comments on the diet of the many-banded krait (Bungarus multicinctus mulitcinctus) in Taiwan. Jean-Jay Mao, et. al. IRCF Reptiles & amphibians. Vol 17. No 3. Jun 2010

The diet of kraits (Elapidae: Bungarus) Short note... Herpetological Rewiew 25(2), 1994

Food of the common venomous snakes of Taiwan. Shou-Hsian Mao. Herpetologica 26:45-46. March, 1970

I do have some more of these, but i found this morning only these three.

Thanks for the references:)

Kelly,

Not a lot to add here except I agree with the others who have responded concerning Bungarus. While they are absolutely beautiful, snakes of this genus have not been very popular with venomous keepers or zoological institutions because of their secretive and ophiophagous habits. My general impression with kraits is that they are very jerky and unpredictable in their behavior and should never be underestimated when having to maneuver them. I have only had experience with B. fasciatus, but do know an occasional one can be switched over to rodents.

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Bungarus Keeping.. not too popular? 8211331650_30eb998531_z

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Regards

Michael

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