# Sticky  Captive Care of Filesnakes



## loxocemus

given the increasing availability and captive breeding of file snakes, mehelya now Gonionotophis specifically the commonly imported crossi but also covering capensis which are much, much harder to source now (and more expensive), i thought I'd do a little basic captive care.

iv included my notes on my capensis but their kind of disjointed and have not aged well out of context.









Stuff and thoughts and maybe even a fact or two


capensis gravid female So care of capensis and crossi is very easy, il include posts from when i kept capensis, that may be interesting or not, especially without some context "the subjects of this recipe are my cape filesnakes mehelya capensis, at first glance they have a desert vibe about...




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so files are south african also inc Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Transvaal, Central African Republic, Namibia, Caprivi Strip, Republic of South Africa, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Cameroon, their preferred habitat is dense forest but will travel savannahs too, on the hunt for cobras and puff adders as well as any non venomous they can overcome etc, they have venom immunity, but its unknown how many species it covers, evolutionary speaking it makes sense their immune to every venomous species they prey on in their given habitats, ie a tanzania animal will very like have a different immunity to a cameroon animal even when feeding on the same prey species, as the prey species venom also varies by area too. their diet also includes rodents and frogs and likely more, especially as neonates.

capensis










crossi











files are famous for their scalation, when you hold one their like a very keeled pituophis, like a lot of snake eaters their bodies are triangular in cross section, very "spinal" like kraits, its an interesting parallel evolutionary adaptation. they also have a lot of bare thin skin in-between their scales (obviously i have theories on both)

head study crossi, often called poensis on import









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crossi are often called poensis on import, this is poensis, notice the head, the animal above is crossi









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this is nyassae











poensis and especially nyassae are generally smaller and can be more problematic in rgds to feeding.

anyway onto crossi/capensis, a large file can be 6ft, especially females, they are sexually dimorphic but i didn't notice it much till they passed 18mth'ish. average size is 4ft, they are endearingly benign in behaviour, they never bite and would rather musk and run, their musk will fill the room, and not in a good way.

neonates will musk but quickly grow out of it unless you give them a sudden fright. in the wild they spend their days in termite mounds ground holes ideally space that retain decent humidity. so, my theory no.1, the thin skin will allow dehydration in captive animals if an ambient humidity of @70%+ is not maintained, this interstitial skin is a two way barrier, it allows the animal to stay hydrated given their preference for moist area's, do not treat them as a low humidity, aspen, dry room species, they will likely fail.

files are most active at dusk especially after a rain, now keep that image in mind, because that is captive file care. files have small eyes, though id say their vision is decent but not on a diurnal species level. their very light shy, bright light = exposure, exposure means danger of predation.

capensis are easy to identify via the spinal white stripe, its snow white and really is a lovely touch










i used large polypropylene tubs to house my files, keep them singly, a hungry file is a very dangerous partner, their smarter than cali's, but no less dangerous. i live in scotland, when its not raining its raining so our ambient humidity is very rarely low (this is the reason when i kept rosy boas they only got a water source one day a week, rosys may experience temporary mist and elevated humidity but its not a constant), where was i, oh yes humidity, a good medium for files is the tried and tested coir blocks (dont bother with those new coco chip blocks, they dry out very quickly and are an ingestion risk, plus their overpriced), get ur coir from a gardening source, not a repackaged reptile one with hiked up prices.

o a layer of about 2" of *moist* coir substrate, (or a nice organic soil), just like with xenopeltis keep a constant eye on this substrate, mix it up and respray with lukewarm water regularly, that thin skin and ur substrate care is an important connection, and key to good hydration, sphagnum moss is also a very very useful addition. cork bark is the ideal hide material as it can retain water (or clay pigeon nest bowls), they will emerge as night and sit on the bark, so its an ideal place to leave their meal before "lights out", they will also snatch mice from tongs, sometimes with impressive violence. diet, crossi and capensis both do great on a diet of mice, you can add some adult mouse sized quail, but only big females can handle chicks fat butts., the only difficulty i found was with the neonates i hatched, they point blank refused plain pinks, their about cali king neonate size, so not little fragile things like neo rhino rats. i tried pinks with housesnake skin stuck on them, i was sure they'd snatch them up, but nope, eventually i tried tuna scenting (brine not oil) and what do you know, i had me some tuna killing cape files, makes sense, not. (i have a theory on this, tuna stinks so bad i think it trips the feed switch when combined with hunger). gradually reducing the scent very quickly led to plain pink feeding babies.

temperature, files are not high temp baskers, temps above 30oc can cause distress and food regurgitation, the ideal temp is 28oc/82of, i provided this via a heatmat that they rarely completely left, just like xeno's they would rest around the mat edges (if under cover) to cool off, the floor of their housing should be a network of cork flats/curves rather than the classic hot end/cold end hides. when they go into deep shed they can be quite surreal looking (as do xeno's, xeno's and files share many similarities). feeding, to be honest nothing special, follow a corn like regime, except nocturnally, i often sprayed the tubs at feeding time.

files are not particularly fast growing, a corn would outpace them, but a 3yr old should be considered adult. breeding, in SA its standard practice to cool their nights to 18oc for a couple of months, they will continue to feed just smaller meals every fortnight or so, then warmed up and classic colubrid introductions (DO NOT brumate them). i didn't do any of that, i made sure they both had a full stomach, the female had just shed and i put the male in with the female her skin and a nice light spray, she was irresistible. a couple months later i found 5 nice eggs (this female went on to double clutch, i believe their capable of triple clutching like housesnakes but it would not be the norm), fat corn sized, i incubated at 81-82of, iv forgot the incubation length it was 81days+ though according to my earlier notes, as soon as one pipped i cut the remaining 4 ("mother nature" wasn't drowning anything on my watch), i think i got the ideal 2.3. some breeders have hatch length of 60 days (like a subtropical corn) and straight onto plain pinks, again others have had longer incubations (likely due to eggs not reaching 30oc/86of) and very difficult feeders. crossi if anything is easier than capensis in all respects.

if i was to keep them again id use drawer caging, the single drawer version not the twin (Cage mods) , soil/coir mix with sphagnum moss in the drawer, lots of cork above and below, heatmat below the drawer at 82of, the upper cage heated to 82of via reptile radiator (or similar), cork branches in the upper cage. some type of low light, likely dimmable leds. i don't know if I've already said but files should not be without water for long, and the first thing u should do upon purchasing/delivery is offer them a drink.

i think that's about it, files are the ideal captive and will soon become more popular due to their lovely nature

rgds
ed


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## loxocemus

iv re-read this and its a bit sloppy even for me, but the main point is their very hardy and adaptable, so i didn't have much to work with 

there is a colubrid rule iv found to be true, 28oc, 60/70%, 90/120 x 60 x 60 covers a ^&£$load of colubrids, u can talk yourself smart for 3 pages but all ur really saying is 28oc, 60/70%, 90/120 x 60 x 60, files fall into this rule. 

rgds
ed.


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## Zincubus

Dare I ask what the going price is for a young / hatchling is these days ? 


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## loxocemus

hello zinc, um capensis no idea their virtually nowhere to be found these days but crossi is essentially capensis -the stripes, rothwell pets do captive born or bred baby crossi for £125 or so, wc adults are around the same, even wild crossi are calm and good eaters once settled. a moss hide is key for a happy file though.

hope ur well my friend
rgds
ed


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## Zincubus

loxocemus said:


> hello zinc, um capensis no idea their virtually nowhere to be found these days but crossi is essentially capensis -the stripes, rothwell pets do captive born or bred baby crossi for £125 or so, wc adults are around the same, even wild crossi are calm and good eaters once settled. a moss hide is key for a happy file though.
> 
> hope ur well my friend
> rgds
> ed


Thank you .. 


Very affordable then .. am I correct in thinking that they are slightly nervous / reclusive types ?


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## loxocemus

"Shy" would be the best way to put it, they virtually never bite, they really do have a lovely demeanour. they do prefer the dawn/dusk times to the brightness of the day.

rgds
ed.



Zincubus said:


> Thank you ..
> 
> 
> Very affordable then .. am I correct in thinking that they are slightly nervous / reclusive types ?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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