Welcome to the rat snake care sheet.
In a Nutshell: This rat snake care sheet contains a lot of detailed information. But that doesn’t mean these snakes are hard to care for in captivity. On the contrary, they are some of the easiest snakes to keep as pets. All you need is an appropriately sized cage, a temperature gradient of 75 – 85 degrees (F), a couple of hiding places, a water bowl, and a steady diet of frozen / thawed rodents.
If you’ve read other care sheets for rat snakes (or any pet snake for that matter), you’ve probably heard about the importance of cage security. If your snake’s enclosure has any gaps or weaknesses, the animal will get loose. A small rat snake only needs a hole the size of a nickel to escape — or even smaller. And once they’re out, they can be very hard to find. So make sure your cage is 100% escape proof. This is one of the reasons I recommend buying a cage, as opposed to making your own. A store-bought terrarium will usually have security features built in, such as a locking lid.
Let’s continue on with our rat snake care sheet to discuss another important cage consideration. Let’s talk about how you can heat your cage — and why you need to.
Heat the Cage Properly
Snakes need some form of supplemental heat in order to survive. By "supplemental," I mean heat that is provided by some external source outside of their bodies. Your rat snake cannot warm itself from within, the way humans can. It relies on its environment for heat. In the wild, the snake would bask in the sun to warm its body. So when you keep a rat snake as a pet, you must duplicate this in some way. You must provide some kind of heat source that allows your pet snake to regulate its body temperature (i.e., thermoregulate). This is another important element of rat snake care, and it will help you keep your pet healthy for years to come.
There are many reptile products on the market today that can help you heat your snake cage. You can choose from a wide variety of heat lamps, ceramic heat emitters, and under-the-tank heating pads and tapes. How you choose to heat your rat snake cage will largely depend on the type of cage you’re using. For my baby snakes, I like to use small glass terrariums with a single heat lamp on top, offset toward one side of the cage to create a temperature gradient. For my adult snakes, I use plastic cages with a similar heating setup.
How you control the temps in your snake’s cage is not that important, as long as you achieve the proper temps in the cage. All of the North American rat snakes can be kept in the same temperature ranges. Aim for a thermal gradient between 75 degrees (Fahrenheit) on the cooler side and 85 degrees (F) on the warmer side. Maintaining a gradient like this is important for rat snake care. It allows your pet snake to choose the temperature it needs, the way it would in the wild.
Offer Some Hiding Places
Up until now, our rat snake care sheet has focused on the cage itself and how you would heat it. Let’s talk about some of the things that will go into the cage, starting with the hides.
In the wild, snakes spend most of their time hiding in holes or under things. If you want your pet rat snake to be as healthy as possible, you need to duplicate this within the captive environment. You need to provide some hiding areas where the snake can retreat to when it feels overexposed or stressed.
I’ve written an entire article on the subject of snake hides, so I don’t plan to repeat it all here. You can read this article to learn how to create suitable hiding areas for your pet snake.
Give Your Pet Snake a Light Cycle
I’ll keep this section short and sweet, because there’s not much to it. In the wild, snakes have a natural cycle of day and night — light and darkness. So you should give your rat snake the same thing in captivity. If the room where the cage sits gets a lot of natural light from windows, this might be all you need. If the room doesn’t get a lot of natural light, you can use a fluorescent light on the cage. You can even put it on a timer so that it comes on for about ten hours a day. Easy!
You don’t need to buy any special UVB bulbs for your rat snake. Lizards and turtles need this kind of UV exposure, but snakes don’t. They might benefit from such exposure, but they don’t necessarily need it to survive. Of course, if you’re like me and want to recreate the natural world for your snake as closely as possible, then you might want to use a UVB light bulb. It’s optional.
Feed Your Snake Every 7 – 10 Days
Let’s wrap up the rat snake care sheet with a topic of great concern for first-time snake keepers. Feeding.
As a general rule, you can feed your pet snake one appropriately sized meal every week. You can feed babies a little more often, and adults a little less often. Snakes need more food when they are growing, and they grow fastest during the first two or three years of life. So you can slow down the feeding program after that rapid-growth period.
When I refer to an "appropriately sized" meal, I’m talking about a mouse or rat that’s about the same width as the widest part of your snake. Your snake is widest in the middle of its body, so try to offer rodents that are about the same girth, or slightly larger than that. If you offer a meal like this every seven days or so, you’re in good shape.
It’s also a good idea to wait until your rat snake poops from the first meal before offering another. This marks the end of the digestive process. Snakes usually poop once after a meal. So the pattern would go like this. Feed the snake. The snake poops a few days later. Wait a couple of days and then feed it again. This is the pattern I’ve been using for many years. It works.
In most cases, captive rat snakes will generally accept frozen / thawed prey. This makes life a lot easier for you, as the keeper. Live rodents can be dangerous in a captive environment. Rodents can easily turn the tables and bite your pet snake — especially rats. In the wild, a snake that’s not in the mood to eat can avoid hungry and aggressive rodents. But inside a cage, there’s nowhere for the snake to "run." So it can easily get bitten and injured. Rodent bites can be nasty, and they usually lead to infection. I think I’ve made my point. Offer frozen / thawed rodents. They are easy to store, easy to thaw, and easy to offer. Just make sure they are completely thawed before you feed them to your pet rat snake. I put my frozen rodents in a small tub of warm water for 20 – 30 minutes.
In a Nutshell: This rat snake care sheet contains a lot of detailed information. But that doesn’t mean these snakes are hard to care for in captivity. On the contrary, they are some of the easiest snakes to keep as pets. All you need is an appropriately sized cage, a temperature gradient of 75 – 85 degrees (F), a couple of hiding places, a water bowl, and a steady diet of frozen / thawed rodents.
If you’ve read other care sheets for rat snakes (or any pet snake for that matter), you’ve probably heard about the importance of cage security. If your snake’s enclosure has any gaps or weaknesses, the animal will get loose. A small rat snake only needs a hole the size of a nickel to escape — or even smaller. And once they’re out, they can be very hard to find. So make sure your cage is 100% escape proof. This is one of the reasons I recommend buying a cage, as opposed to making your own. A store-bought terrarium will usually have security features built in, such as a locking lid.
Let’s continue on with our rat snake care sheet to discuss another important cage consideration. Let’s talk about how you can heat your cage — and why you need to.
Heat the Cage Properly
Snakes need some form of supplemental heat in order to survive. By "supplemental," I mean heat that is provided by some external source outside of their bodies. Your rat snake cannot warm itself from within, the way humans can. It relies on its environment for heat. In the wild, the snake would bask in the sun to warm its body. So when you keep a rat snake as a pet, you must duplicate this in some way. You must provide some kind of heat source that allows your pet snake to regulate its body temperature (i.e., thermoregulate). This is another important element of rat snake care, and it will help you keep your pet healthy for years to come.
There are many reptile products on the market today that can help you heat your snake cage. You can choose from a wide variety of heat lamps, ceramic heat emitters, and under-the-tank heating pads and tapes. How you choose to heat your rat snake cage will largely depend on the type of cage you’re using. For my baby snakes, I like to use small glass terrariums with a single heat lamp on top, offset toward one side of the cage to create a temperature gradient. For my adult snakes, I use plastic cages with a similar heating setup.
How you control the temps in your snake’s cage is not that important, as long as you achieve the proper temps in the cage. All of the North American rat snakes can be kept in the same temperature ranges. Aim for a thermal gradient between 75 degrees (Fahrenheit) on the cooler side and 85 degrees (F) on the warmer side. Maintaining a gradient like this is important for rat snake care. It allows your pet snake to choose the temperature it needs, the way it would in the wild.
Offer Some Hiding Places
Up until now, our rat snake care sheet has focused on the cage itself and how you would heat it. Let’s talk about some of the things that will go into the cage, starting with the hides.
In the wild, snakes spend most of their time hiding in holes or under things. If you want your pet rat snake to be as healthy as possible, you need to duplicate this within the captive environment. You need to provide some hiding areas where the snake can retreat to when it feels overexposed or stressed.
I’ve written an entire article on the subject of snake hides, so I don’t plan to repeat it all here. You can read this article to learn how to create suitable hiding areas for your pet snake.
Give Your Pet Snake a Light Cycle
I’ll keep this section short and sweet, because there’s not much to it. In the wild, snakes have a natural cycle of day and night — light and darkness. So you should give your rat snake the same thing in captivity. If the room where the cage sits gets a lot of natural light from windows, this might be all you need. If the room doesn’t get a lot of natural light, you can use a fluorescent light on the cage. You can even put it on a timer so that it comes on for about ten hours a day. Easy!
You don’t need to buy any special UVB bulbs for your rat snake. Lizards and turtles need this kind of UV exposure, but snakes don’t. They might benefit from such exposure, but they don’t necessarily need it to survive. Of course, if you’re like me and want to recreate the natural world for your snake as closely as possible, then you might want to use a UVB light bulb. It’s optional.
Feed Your Snake Every 7 – 10 Days
Let’s wrap up the rat snake care sheet with a topic of great concern for first-time snake keepers. Feeding.
As a general rule, you can feed your pet snake one appropriately sized meal every week. You can feed babies a little more often, and adults a little less often. Snakes need more food when they are growing, and they grow fastest during the first two or three years of life. So you can slow down the feeding program after that rapid-growth period.
When I refer to an "appropriately sized" meal, I’m talking about a mouse or rat that’s about the same width as the widest part of your snake. Your snake is widest in the middle of its body, so try to offer rodents that are about the same girth, or slightly larger than that. If you offer a meal like this every seven days or so, you’re in good shape.
It’s also a good idea to wait until your rat snake poops from the first meal before offering another. This marks the end of the digestive process. Snakes usually poop once after a meal. So the pattern would go like this. Feed the snake. The snake poops a few days later. Wait a couple of days and then feed it again. This is the pattern I’ve been using for many years. It works.
In most cases, captive rat snakes will generally accept frozen / thawed prey. This makes life a lot easier for you, as the keeper. Live rodents can be dangerous in a captive environment. Rodents can easily turn the tables and bite your pet snake — especially rats. In the wild, a snake that’s not in the mood to eat can avoid hungry and aggressive rodents. But inside a cage, there’s nowhere for the snake to "run." So it can easily get bitten and injured. Rodent bites can be nasty, and they usually lead to infection. I think I’ve made my point. Offer frozen / thawed rodents. They are easy to store, easy to thaw, and easy to offer. Just make sure they are completely thawed before you feed them to your pet rat snake. I put my frozen rodents in a small tub of warm water for 20 – 30 minutes.