Non Spitting Asian Cobras (Naja sp.)
We will describe only how these snakes are kept in captivity, for more details about zoological discriptions and taxonomic notes do we refer to the Asiatic Cobra Systematics Page of Wolfagang Wüster http://sbsweb.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/Taxa/AsNaja.htm This site provides you of perfect information about descriptions of the Asian Cobra species and also speaks about taxonomy
General:
The
following Asian cobra species will be past in this section, on captive
experience of the Authors.
Information
told about these species will be, feeding, keeping, breeding and captive
behaviour.
The
enclosure:
These
large and robust build snakes are non spitters that ask a fair amount of space
as enclosure. My own animals are kept in a enclosure made out of chip wood. The
entrance to the enclosure exists out of 6 mm glass sliding windows that can be
locked with a glass show case lock. The size of the enclosures is 120 x 60 x 80
cm (length x wide x height). On a height of 40 cm there is a platform with a
spotlight above, so the snakes can lay down on this platform to heat up. I use
one plastic fern in every enclosure what the snakes also can use as a spot to
hide behind. I also use a big 10 litter water bowl in the enclosure which the
animals like to use quit often to take a bath. Heating and lighting is done with
a 75 watt spotlight and on the bottom of the enclosure a heating cable. The
water bowl is placed partially on this cable to help to maintain a humidity
level from around 70 – 80% depending on the temperature and time of the day.
The average temperature in the enclosure is around 250C, and on the
platform under the spotlight around 350C. As a substrate I use a
mixture of potting soil, coco bark and peat this mixture will absorb easily
fluid and faeces. Just behind the cage did I place a up standing edge of 5 cm
high which will stop the substrate to get in to the slide rail of the glass
windows.
Feeding:
These
big cobras are easy tof feed, most of them will accept every kind of prey item
you offer them. In nature do they feed mainly on rodents, birds, eggs of
reptiles and birds, snakes and fish. Juveniles feed mainly on small lizards,
frogs and toads. In captivity they accept mice, rats, guinea pigs, small
rabbits, eggs, chicken and fish. I try to feed my animals a wide variety on food
like mice, rats, chicks, eggs and sometimes fish all food is given dead and fed
out of a tweezer. Juveniles are fed on baby mice and when they don’t accept
baby mice I scent them with a gecko or a frog and most of the time they will
accept this.
Captive
Behaviour:
My
experience with this species is that they get quit docile. They spend many time
in there water bowl and when they get active they crawl around in there cage
searching for anything to eat. The thing that I noticed is that these cobras are
real bluffers inside of there enclosures and that they are completely calm when
handling them on a hook or by tailing. They also seem to look quit curious when
you approach them. They will check you out by flicking there tongue up and down
to smell what is going on. When it is feeding time they can be very angry and
bite to every movement. My experience with the snakes I own is that they are
terrible and aggressive hunters, when fed alive they really hunt there prey down
first they stand up hiss at there prey and then they start there hunt they will
bite several times and even hold on there prey when they get bitten by it. In my
opinion can you better feed them dead food items than alive.
Breeding:
To
breed these two species of cobras is in my opinion not the hardest job to do, I
tried different methods and all seem to work quit well.
All
cobras of the Naja complex are
oviparous and lay 8 – 28 (max. 45) eggs in a clutch. The eggs are laid 60 –
100 days after oviposition. Depending on the incubation temperature will the
eggs hatch after 48 – 60 days. The hatchlings molt for the first time after 2
– 11 days. The egg size is aproximaly 47 – 55 mm x 22 – 35 mm. Hatchlings
are 12 – 27 cm by birth.
To
get the adult cobras to mate did I use different methods, all the things that I
tried didn’t make a big difference at all. Personally I think that these
animals don’t need a hibernation period to make influence on there mating
behaviour. Still I use to give them a sort of wet season from October till
January. In this fake wet season do I also play with the temperature. Out of
experience I found out that when I don’t provide the snakes with this wet
period they still mate. The only difference I could see is that there is a
bigger change of a second clutch of eggs in the same season when I give them
this wet period.
I
incubate the eggs in a dry incubator on a temperature of 28 - 320C.
The humidity level is around 70 – 80% and can be influenced with spraying the
eggs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
Copyright©2002
Richard Mastenbroek
All
rights reserved. No parts of this website may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission
of the author
This
page is not build to stimulate people to keep venomous snakes. All Captive
information given on this page is based on own experience
