The serpent is so vicious and fierce, but some people like it very much.

I believe that "snake" is a frightening animal for many people. The serpent, also known as the five-step snake, is a very scary and vicious animal. As long as you think of it and see it, you will be far away and avoid seeing it. However, as a kind of traditional Chinese medicine, some people will raise it full-time and make a considerable profit.

Picture of the original animal of the snake.

The serpent, also known as the white flower snake, the nose snake, the five-step snake, the hundred-step snake, the chessboard snake, the five-step jump, and the plough maker, comes from the dry body of the viper family five-step snake Agkistrodon acutus (G ü enther). Capture more than summer and autumn, cut open the snake belly, remove the internal organs, wash, use bamboo pieces to open the abdomen, disk into a disc, dry and remove bamboo pieces. Its taste sweet, salty; sexual temperature; poisonous; Guigan Meridian; with expelling wind, dredging collaterals, antispasmodic effect, mainly used for rheumatism stubborn arthralgia, numbness and clonus, apoplexy mouth and eye  oblique, hemiplegia, convulsion spasm, tetanus, leprosy, scabies and other diseases; Agkistrodon acutus is widely distributed, mainly distributed in Anhui, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan; Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong, Taiwan also have distribution. It is a traditional commonly used animal medicine. Agkistrodon acutus is a specialty medicine in China, which has been used for more than 2000 years. It is still an important medicine for the treatment of common diseases such as rheumatism, paralysis, furunculosis and so on. It is also the main raw material in many kinds of proprietary Chinese medicine or traditional powder and alcohol. Snake meat, snake gall, snake slough, snake venom, snake oil, snake skin and so on are all used as medicine. In addition, snake meat can also be eaten, snake skin is used as raw material for leather industry, and snake snakes are in great demand. With the decrease of wild Agkistrodon acutus resources, the price of Agkistrodon acutus is rising year by year, and now many people begin to breed Agkistrodon acutus artificially. So, how do the ferocious and venomous Agkistrodon acutus are raised in captivity? The following is an introduction to the artificial feeding techniques of snake snakes.

Map of traditional Chinese medicine of Agkistrodon acutus

[feeding technology]

First, select a site to build it.

Snake farms should choose places with high and dry terrain, dense soil, open to the sun, and far away from residential areas. The size of the snake farm can be determined according to the number of snakes.

1. Snake farm construction

Build a fence, the wall is 2 to 2.5 meters high, the wall foundation should be deep, firm, and the wall surface is smooth and seamless. If the fence does not open the door, there can be a ladder inside and outside the wall. the staircase inside the wall should be about 1 meter away from the fence, so that the snake will not climb out of the wall. when people enter the snake field, they can build a wooden plank bridge and pull it off when they are not in use. The snake field should have a certain slope to facilitate drainage. There is a snake nest in the field, the height and width of the nest is generally about 0.5 meters, it can be simply made of brick or stone or a tile tank as a wall, some soil is piled on the outside, and a hole is set up on both sides of the nest wall to communicate with the outside world. The top of the nest should be opened, and a lid should be added to facilitate observation and extraction of snakes. The bottom of the nest should be higher than the ground outside the nest, and some sandy thatch should be covered inside the nest. Pay attention to moisture prevention, ventilation and heat preservation. The field had better have small ponds, ditches, feed ponds, stone piles, caves and grasslands, and plant some flowers, grass, bamboo and wood to simulate the wild living environment of snakes. Frogs, nestlings, chicks and other small animals can be raised in the field for snakes to feed at any time. Installing black lights in snake farms to attract insects to feed on frogs is also beneficial for snakes to prey on frogs and other foods. The place where the ditch goes in and out of the snake farm should be covered by a metal sieve plate to prevent the snake from escaping and wild animals from entering.

two。 Snake house construction

Can be used for general housing reconstruction, can also be specially designed and built (snake house). The walls of the snake room should be smooth and seamless, ventilated in summer and warm in winter. There can be a certain number of snake nests, snake holes, pools and lawns in the room. in order to facilitate observation, glass windows can be set up on the wall, which can be protected by barbed wire, or can be separated into corridors with fine barbed wire in the room for breeders to enter and leave safely and prevent snakes from escaping.

3. Construction of Snake Garden

The snake garden is the breeding place with the combination of the snake house and the snake farm, the method is to set the snake nest in the snake house, while the pond, ditch, feed pond, rockery and grass are set in the wall outside the snake house, and the snake house is connected with the snake farm. This method is suitable for the experimental study of snakes.

2. Feeding methods

1. Provenance

Agkistrodon acutus generally rely on collecting wild adults to breed snakes. If purchased from the purchasing department, attention should be paid to selecting adults with harmless body, bright color and normal activity as snakes.

two。 Release density

Put the strong species of snakes in the snake farm or in the snake house or snake garden for breeding. It is appropriate to put in no more than 10 pieces per square meter. Agkistrodon acutus of different body length and age should be raised separately, not mixed, otherwise it is easy to eat each other and cause losses. During the breeding period, attention should be paid to collecting snake eggs in time for hatching.

3. Incubation

Pregnant female snakes can be kept in a snake box to lay eggs, and then transferred to the incubator to hatch. The incubator can use a cement pool, simply use a tile tank or a wooden box, and place it in a cool and ventilated place, which is covered with 6 centimeters of sand and weeds. The humidity of the sand can be held by hand to form a mass, the grass should be slightly damp, and the sand or grass can be made into a basin-shaped nest. Put the snake eggs in the nest and you can hatch artificially. The eggs of Agkistrodon acutus can hatch in 26-29 days under the conditions of air temperature 19.2-32 ℃, soil temperature 17.5-31 ℃ and humidity 50-95%. Most of the young snakes come out of their shells at night.

4. The breeding of young snakes

After the baby snake is born, it should be raised in a snake box. The size of the snake box is 90 × 80 × 50 cm, the bottom is covered with sand mud and turf, the cover of the box is made of barbed wire, and the front plate is inlaid with thick glass for observation. The temperature in the box should be kept at about 15 ℃ or a little higher, and the relative humidity should be kept above 50%. Provide sufficient clean water and feed for newborn mice, earthworms, insects and so on.