Gonyosoma oxycephalum (Spit-head snake)

Age: Up to 20 years
Origin: Indonesia
Length: Up to 1.7 meters
The pointed-head snake has rough scales on the belly for climbing trees and smaller smooth scales on the top with a bright green or light green color. The top of their head is dark green, yellow-green or yellow with a dark horizontal line through the eyes.

Care:
Experience: Average snake keeper
Food: Live or dead prey such as mice or rats
Feed adult: Every 5 to 10 days a mouse or rat
Feeding young: Pinkies every 3 to 4 days
Water bowl: Yes
Water change: 3 times a week

Power supply
There is the choice to offer the prey alive or dead. It is advisable to offer dead food. This is more practical and prevents the food animal from injuring your snake. In addition, it is advised to offer the food animal with feeding tongs and to feed your snake outside the enclosure. This ensures that your hand is not associated with food and prevents your snake from reaching for your hand during feeding. If you do go for live food, you must supervise during feeding. The prey animal can also injure the snake. Feed the snake separately, because when two snakes catch the same prey, they can injure each other and sometimes even eat each other. The ideal prey is about as wide as the widest part of the snake.

Water
The water bowl in the enclosure must be large enough for the snake to lie in it in its entirety. A water dish will also help maintain the humidity in the tank.

Cleaning
A hygienic living environment is important to keep your pointed head snake healthy. To achieve this, the accommodation will have to be cleaned regularly. Cleaning once a week is enough. In addition, to prevent the build-up of bacteria, the entire accommodation must be cleaned and disinfected a few times a year.

Handling
The pointed-headed snake is not known to be very defensive or aggressive. However, when they are not yet used to being handled, they can react nervously and nervously. To get the snake used to contact with people it is advisable to pick up and handle the animal from time to time, but how do you handle a snake, make sure you support the animal at the base of the body and midway to the ends of the body. Never squeeze your snake while handling, as their vertebrae are fragile and can break easily. Also make sure your hands are washed and do not smell like food. Finally, do not handle your snake when it is shedding and do not handle the animal if it has just eaten. The young snakes or snakes that have not been handled before can be defensive and can therefore attack. After multiple handlings, the snake will naturally get used to it and become less defensive.

Housing
Minimum enclosure size for 1 snake: 100x50x100
Lying surface: A lying surface at height is recommended as it is a snake that likes to live at height.
Day temperature: 25 to 30 degrees Celsius
Night temperature: 23 to 27 degrees Celsius
Hours of light: 12 hours a day
Humidity Level: 50-80%
Ground cover: bark, sand or beech chips

Design
Since this species naturally lives in trees, it is important that sufficient climbing opportunities are available in the terrarium. This can be done by offering climbing branches. As with any animal, it must be able to hide, make sure that there is also a hiding place at height. This can be achieved by a plastic cave or a piece of cork, the hose must fit in here in its entirety. There must always be a water bowl in the enclosure where the snake can lie completely in to bathe. This also helps to maintain humidity levels. Make sure it is heavy enough so that it cannot be knocked over.
Before your stay there are some extra things that should be taken into account. The pointed-headed snake is able to squeeze itself through small cracks. Keep this in mind and make sure that there are no small cracks in the accommodation that it can fit through. In addition, ventilation is necessary to keep the air fresh and it is advisable to place it out of the bright sun and as vibration-free as possible.

Behaviour
Hunting method: Strangler snake
Lifestyle: Semi-aboreal and diurnal

Character
It is an aboreal species that can often be found in trees. They can react defensively when they are not used to being handled but when they are handled more often this gets better.

Points of attention
Spithead snakes can be defensive, especially in the enclosure. Pay attention to this when handling your hose to avoid unnecessary injury. Regular handling will eventually make the snake tamer and calmer.

Cost and Purchase
Legislation: No documentation is required to keep a pointed-headed snake.
One-off costs: This includes the costs for accommodation, lighting, heating, water bowl and decoration. This can cost a few hundred euros to a few thousand euros in total. The final amount depends on the quality and size of the products.
Fixed costs: Fixed costs include the costs for the feed, which is a few tens of euros per year.
Unexpected costs: Costs are incurred when your snake happens to get sick or your equipment breaks down.