Hatchlings should start out in an appropriately sized small vivarium or plastic container as they can become stressed and stop feeding in an oversized vivarium.Īll snakes are excellent escape artists, so care must be taken when planning their housing. The cage should allow a minimum of 30cm of floor space to 30cm of snake and be approximately a third of the snake’s length in height. A medium sized vivarium (even a fish tank with a tight fitting lid) will house your Honduran nicely. Like most milk snakes, Honduran Milk Snakes are quite active, but do not need huge enclosures. So I urge the buyer of a hatchling Honduran Milk Snake to be patient, as this species will tame down as it grows and as an adult it will become very tame. In all honesty, I have never been bitten once by our adults and they are very tame and docile and easy to handle. As they grow and begin to become used to you they tame down very well. A bite from one of these guys is, of course, completely harmless and isn’t even painful all it does is give you a bit of a fright if you are not used to being bitten. When we are packing our Honduran Milk Snakes at the show we often joke around as to who is going to setup them up in the displays, as often if you are not careful you will get a bite and they are very quick. They are known to be quite bitey as they will feel threatened by you trying to handle them that is just the truth and you can’t blame them from being nervous of us. As babies they tend to be defensive and fairly quick. Honduran Milk Snakes hatch out as large robust babies, much bigger than many of the other milk snake species.

In herpetolculture, little to no black tipping is more desirable.Īdults average around 1.2 – 1.5m in size but there have been specimens that have been reported reaching sizes up to 2m.

This black tipping is often more abundant on the inner rings. This black pigment is also referred to as “black tipping”. Juveniles start out nice and clean looking, but often develop black pigment on many of the scales as they grow. When the inner rings are orange, it’s called a Tangerine Honduran. A Honduran Milk with yellow rings is known as a Tri-colour Honduran. The inner rings can be yellow or orange and anywhere in between. The background colour ranges from red to orange. The normal or wild type Honduran Milk Snake is a beautiful snake by itself. The Honduran Milk Snake occurs naturally at low to medium elevations of the tropical areas of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Northeastern Costa Rica. Of all the milk snakes I personally feel that the Honduran Milk Snake is the most impressive, not only in size but also with regards to their bright colouring, especially when it comes to the amazing variety of mutations that exist within this species. It has been a long time since we have done any articles on this beautiful species of Milk Snake, so we thought it was time to do an updated article on the large and attractive Honduran Milk Snake.

Honduran milksnake breeders