Snakes make fun and charming pets – if you’re not afraid of them, of course. Snake enthusiasts search for non-aggressive but attractive ones to raise as pets. Among the most popular is the smooth green snake, one of the cutest snake species that you can take home.
Smooth green snakes are slim and small and known to live in captivity for six years and more. They feed on insects, preferably soft-bodied ones, and require a diverse nutritious diet. They’re not poisonous and don’t normally attack humans but can be easily stressed, especially by handling.
Read on to find out more about this beautiful snake species, including their size, lifestyle, mating habits, diet preferences, and housing conditions.
All About the Smooth Green Snake
Let’s start with a brief introduction to the smooth green snake.
The smooth green snake (Opheodrys vernalis) is native to North America and common in the US, southeast Canada, and the north of Mexico.
The lifespan of the smooth green snake varies and is not quite well studied yet. We don’t know how long it survives in the wild, but it has been reported to live six years or longer in captivity.
If you’re planning to raise one, you can refer to the full guide below for more information about this snake species.
Size and Characteristics
It is slim and relatively small, between 14 and 20 inches (36 to 51 cm).
Its most distinctive feature, however, is the bright green color that gives the snake its name. Before shedding, the smooth green snake slightly changes in color, appearing more olive than emerald. Their underside, on the other hand, can be white or yellowish.
These snakes are not poisonous or aggressive, which makes them wonderful pets for snake lovers. They’re more likely to hide from danger. However, in a particularly stressful situation, the smooth green snake can bite.
It’s not high-maintenance, yet keeping it as a pet can be challenging if you don’t have much experience with snakes, especially when it comes to feeding.
Diet and Feeding
The smooth green snake is one of the few snake species that feed on insects instead of mice, lizards, or small birds. Their favorite treats include the following:
- Snails
- Grasshoppers
- Beetles
- Worms
- Crickets
- Moths
- Caterpillars
- Spiders
Your main goal when feeding your smooth green snake is to ensure they have a varied and rich diet.
The prey should also be well-fed to supply your pet with enough nutrients and essential minerals. This is called gut-loading, and it’s an important part of producing healthy food for insectivores or animals that feed on insects.
The diet should be based on soft-bodied insects with as much variety as you can provide. Include grasshoppers or beetles from time to time, making sure they are well balanced out by easily digestible food to avoid potential health issues with your smooth green snake.
Compared to other snakes, the smooth green snake requires feeding quite frequently, one to three times a week for a twenty-minute period. While this species’ food preferences aren’t very challenging for their owners, ensuring they eat well can still be problematic.
The smooth green snake can lose interest in the food and ignore the prey you offer. That’s just part of their eating habits you will have to adapt to. Choosing dusk or dawn for feeding will increase your chances of getting your pet to eat.
As green snakes are easily stressed, it is better to let them enjoy their meals in private with no noise or other distractions.
It’s also crucial to supply the smooth green snake with enough water. This species is most comfortable drinking it from surrounding leaves, which imitates wildlife conditions. To help them do it, mist their cage in addition to providing a bowl of fresh water daily.
Lifestyle and Habits
Smooth green snakes enjoy grassy environments. In the wild, they live in meadows, fields, and similar areas. They provide great conditions for hiding by matching the bright green color of the snake’s back.
These snakes mainly live on the ground, but when hunting for prey, they can climb up bushes, trees, and other plants or get underground in search of food.
The active period of smooth green snakes is during the warm season, typically from April to October. During this time, the snakes enjoy the sunshine and can often be found basking in the sun.
While their eyesight is good compared to other snake species, they mostly use their tongues to navigate the world around them. When the smooth green snake is hunting, you will see its tongue moving around in search of prey.
As mentioned, this snake can be easily scared and isn’t much of a fighter. It is more likely to run away from danger than attempt to attack the enemy. They are shy, cautious with handling and physical contact, easily stressed, and moody.
Mating
The smooth green snake mates in late spring or summer and lays eggs thirty days after. Its eggs are small in size, about 1 inch (2.5 cm) long, and white in color. They hatch 4 to 23 days later. By that time, their parents would be gone from the nest, as the green snakes are entirely independent.
Housing the Smooth Green Snake
What should you know about keeping a smooth green snake at home as a pet? Here are some of the most important details about what conditions they should be kept in and the special care they require.
Environment
First of all, you need to ensure a safe and comfortable environment for your smooth green snake. As mentioned, these snakes are very thin, so you need a tank with a tight lid with narrow mesh holes that will prevent them from going out.
Their small size can make it challenging to find them, and there’s also a risk of accidentally injuring them when they get out of their tanks.
Look for a tank with a volume of about 20 or 30 gallons (76 or 114 liters) to provide your pet with enough space. While smooth green snakes are small, they need a lot of room, especially because their comfortable surroundings will take up about half of the tank.
Make sure to include plenty of greenery, preferably the ones your snake will be able to climb, such as branches or vines. It’s worth paying attention to such details when designing the tank, as smooth green snakes can be very sensitive to their environment.
The absence of greenery leaves it without an opportunity to camouflage and disguise itself, which will instantly cause the smooth green snake discomfort. This is why it’s crucial to provide your pet with lots of plants, among which it can hide. Make sure to only include non-toxic live plants.
Humidity
Another important factor is humidity. Typically, misting the plants and keeping a bowl of fresh water will be enough to support the optimum humidity level of about 40-50%. However, during shedding, it helps to bring the humidity around 10% up.
Temperature
It’s also essential to maintain a comfortable temperature in the cage and also provide a heat gradient. It means that the heat source should be located in a way that allows for uneven heating of the tank, leaving hotter and cooler spots for the snake to be able to move between them and regulate its temperature.
The recommended temperature range for the gradient is 70 to 80 °F (21 to 27 °C) during the day and 65 to 75 °F (18 to 24 °C) at night. Regarding the heat source, you can use a heat lamp and put it on the side of the tank or overhead.
Lighting
Make sure to support a proper day and night cycle for your snake. The light should be on for about 10 to 12 hours a day, and then all light sources should be turned off so your smooth green snake can rest.
Use a UVB bulb as the lighting source in the cage. It has also been reported to have positive effects on the health of green snakes.
Handling
While the smooth green snake is not likely to bite you or attack you in any way, handling it often is still not recommended. Though it doesn’t pose any particular danger to you, frequent physical interaction can harm the snake’s health.
This is because smooth green snakes are pretty sensitive. It’s easy to scare them or stress them out. Frequent handling is one of those things that can make them uneasy and anxious.
It’s best not to touch a smooth green snake much, especially if you notice it losing interest in food. However, when you do handle them, they are nice and calm and act friendly. Still, remember that despite their sociable behavior, it can be a stressful experience for them when done frequently.
Final Thoughts
The smooth green snake can make a great pet. It’s not dangerous to humans and doesn’t typically try to attack. These snakes might require specific conditions, such as lots of greenery in their cage for hiding and slithering around and optimum humidity and temperature levels.
Their diet consists of worms, spiders, and soft-bodied insects, with the addition of grasshoppers and beetles. They’re easy to scare, so don’t handle them often and provide them with comfortable conditions where they can feel calm and safe, especially when feeding.