One of the guys who used to work at Glades was in a bad wreck one year and missed a herp show that I saw him at every year. When I saw him the following year I asked him how he was doing. He had broken his legs and an arm and had gone through nine months of physical therapy. It all sounded like a very painful ordeal. "It was nothing compared to the time I got bitten by the gila, though," was his reply to my sympathy. With that for perspective, I have a very healthy respect for these guys!

I had a guy buy a pair of bamboo viper babies from me one year in Hamburg and he kept and bred lots of colubrids, so I wasn't too worried about his experience level. I told him to keep the vipers warmer and more humid than he kept his colubrids and he'd be fine. The vipers are used to drought and rainy seasons and they are extremely tolerable of both conditions, so they're very easy to keep. The guy calls me up three months later because his animals both have RI and he doesn't know why. It turns out that he was misting them daily and keeping wet towels wrapped around the top of the cage. He had 97 percent humidity and it was 97 F in the tank! Only when I told him that he had a perfect breeding ground for bacteria and fungi did it click for him. Since then I've been very specific about preferred temps and humidity on my website, even though I personally may never even pay attention to my hygrometers.

So when people say that the gilas actually prefer cooler temps and higher humidty than you'd expect, it leaves the door open to a lot of interpretation. I'm just trying not be a newbie and make dumb newbie mistakes. So I appreciate your comment about misting them daily and keeping the waterbowl full. So far, so good here. They love digging through the carefresh and I'll try to make it work for them. I'd hate to stick my new prizes in shoe boxes where I can't show them off. Thanks.

Derek

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