Cobras are kept in a pit called a Serpentarium, which requires the Herpeculture tech to build.
Once a Serpentarium is built, cobras will migrate in and out of it over time, though cobra movement patterns are not well understood. Food can be stored in a Serpentarium to attract cobras and keep them fed. They generally eat very little food (approximately 1 random item per day?), making a cobra pit a good place to store rabbits and chickens. Snake food consists of:
You may examine the Serpentarium (gives information about snake population, such as whether a snake arrived/left/was born, and feeding habits, such as whether something was eaten). Cobras produce Cobra Skins (naturally over time), Cobra Venom when successfully milked and Cobra Blood when a snake is killed (used in ambrosia for the Festival of Hathor).
Cobras produce:
Menu options are:
After extensive study, we determined the following about the life-cycle of cobras:
1) Wild cobras, while common, seldom settle into man made pits. About once per hour, a clutch of cobras will settle into a pit, somewhere in Egypt.
2) Cobras shed their skin at a constant rate, but more predictably when a pit is full. A pit with 49 cobras will produce a skin once per hour.
3) A full pit has a dominant cobra every hour. A half full pit has one every 2 hours on average, etc. A dominant cobra in a pit will do one of three things with equal probability. We were astounded to discover how predictable cobras are this way!
4) One thing the dominant cobra may do is breed. The baby will stay in the pit for at least an hour.
5) Another thing a dominant cobra may do is wander off. Captive cobras prefer to settle into nearby pits, but will sometimes escape back to the wild. Being wild animals, they don't seem to care who owns a pit! Cobras that wander will seldom go between just two pits.
6) A third thing a cobra may do is eat. Cobras are picky eaters, and will decide ahead of time what sort of food they are in the mood for. Perhaps a bit of Camel Milk, or a tasty Rooster. If the food it wants is in the pit, it will stay and eat. Otherwise it will return to the wild.
7) The ratios of what the dominant cobra does each hour are such that by having an extensive network of nearby pits, it is thought possible to raise cobras with extremely limited food.
See also: Livestock, Serpentarium