Cerastes Cerastes questions.

Hello everyone,

I recently took my second venomus. One Cerastes Cerastes female about 60cm she is eating live pray about now and she is WC speciment.

I keep 40C basking spot and 28.5-29 temps at day. 20-21 night temperature (the season helps me for these night drops)
Heat the terrarium with heat cable.

So I have some questions about them.

1. In few other sites I have seen that UVB at least 5.0 is necessary. I can't be sure about that because I have never seen my viper to Basking or to make day walks. She goes for walk only on night time.

2. With few friends that they also own a cerastes sad to me that frozen pray to cerastes is a vary rare phenomenon, I realy want to make her change to frozen pray for many reasons. (internal parasites , personal ideology etc)

3. I have read that WC cerastes suffers from internal parasites and that usually dies from them. I wondering if that is real and what can I do about that, any preventive treatment with panacur or smth? Unfortunately Vets in Greece doesn't know anything about reptiles, I can't image their face if I tell to them about venomous vipers.

With Best regards George Faitatzoglou

Hi,

Congratulations on choosing the Cerastes. I think they are great snakes and very fun to keep.
I've been keeping this species for almost 4 years now and I'm very pleased with them.
Regarding the temperatures, I think what you're doing is very good.
UVB I think is not necessary. These snakes are nocturnal so, in the wild, they very rarely bask and when they do, they do it for very short periods of time... I've managed to find a few specimens in the wild in Tunisia this year and all of them were found at night, in ambush positions. Following fresh tracks in the sand in the early morning did not pay of at all... I could not see any snakes active during the day...
Dead mice for your Cerastes might be possible but for me it rarely works... Usually, I just throw a live mouse in the cage and the snakes catch them before they touch the ground. Sometimes this works with dead mice but most often it doesn't.

Good luck with your snake !

Thank you alexandru.

Any one that have information about internal parasites and cerastes?

Here is some photos from my snake.

Cerastes Cerastes questions. Dsc05447cut

Cerastes Cerastes questions. Dsc05447cut

Some one today told me that sand for reptiles isn't good for cerastes and I have to change the Triexie 100% natural sand with sand for aquarium because the aquarium sand is more soft and will be not problem if the snake eat some sand with her meal.

Any help will be acceptable!

With regards George.

I will let someone else answer your parasites questions as I have little experience in this part of the field...
Regarding substrate, I've been keeping my specimens on JBL yellow desert sand since I have them and they are doing very well. I keep a level of sand in the cage of about 5 cm and the snakes burrow in the sand very frequently. In the wild, they also live in sandy areas with varying degrees of vegetation cover. So, I don't see what the problem would be if you keep it on sand...

I know that cerastes is burried in sand in the wild, that's why I think I will have no problem with the sand that I use right now.

But in the wild also snakes die from simple things, I had a ball python that died from a bark that stuck in the palate. The snake wasn't breathing right and mucus start to show up. After 1 week he was sick by respiratory and died.

I'm wondering what can go wrong with my cerastes if she eats this kind of sand, Rectal prolapse or something like that?
I think nothing but maybe the person who told me about aquarium sand has a point.

I don't know if all this questions are just stupid or too much! I 'm just trying to assure the best for the health of my snake and the health of all my collection. Because if any internal parasites go to my Morelia viridis probably I will have serious problem with them.

Any one?

UP.

Whatever sand is fine and wild caught animals should be treaded just to be sure.
I've had them for many years and never had problems with them. I only kept CB though.

Cheers, Ro.

I've kept C. cerastes for years without a problem. They all ate frozen and defrosted mice from forceps without a problem, and they were kept exclusively on a sand substrate. The sand I used was purchased from a home center, and it's called "Play Sand," for use in sandboxes for children. This type of sand isn't as sharp as builder's sand, which is used in making concrete.

Cerastes Cerastes questions. Scan1037

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