I'll give him another complete go-over with the spray since you think it might be the mites. We had sprayed him three times (once every 3 days) before, took out the substrate the first time and sprayed it completely and used papertowels, changed them the second time and sprayed it completely again, and then lastly used bleach water to clean the tank completely and sprayed him the last time before putting him in with new substrate. And the substrate is nice and damp all the time for his liking, and the humidity was 65% on the hot side next to the substrate, nearly 80% right by the water bowl.



And the water dish is no longer that tiny thing. It's now a cat-litter pan that can handlehim when he's about 12' as well, so we have another 6-10 months or more for the pan... Then it will be good for a RTB cage! I only used the baking dish for awhile because I couldn't find anything else he wasn't tipping over - even with rocks in the bottom! As soon as he tried soaking in the 11x13" pan, I knew I had to make a severe search for a LARGE pan. Found it at Walmart - under $4, too!



We also have a total of 6 heavy-duty cage clips on the top of the cage for security. Thus, I'm happy about the security for the time being. Thank you.



Cage size. Those cages sound like an awesome thing to have. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to eventually build a building where I can have cages big enough for each animal to fully stretch out and move around as they like... But that's at least 5-8 years away for me (newly married, 22 years old, and my husband is under one year at his job that will be his career until he retires if the company doesn't go under - very unlikely since it's General Electric). We'll see. I really like how some zoos are starting to give animals larger spaces and lots of stuff to keep them occupied - lobsters getting shells and rocks to "play" with, elephants having to hunt for their food, etc... I want to do more research into how we can inrich the lives of our reptiles - certain ones are easy, but I'm in the dark about snakes as of yet! So far, all the snakes like the fake plants I put in their cages - usually I find the plants next to or partly within the hide, or being used as a hide instead of the box provided! (those that use the plants used to use the box no problem, but 3 snakes prefer the greenery) So much to work towards... First step tho is to get everyone a bigger cage - for now they are in cages of minimum size at least, but I want everyone into good large cages that they'll like. Just three weeks and I can start getting that done. Oh, I do think that it's best to have a natural environment for many animals, but you have to think about what details are needed for the animal to be happy with it's life. Do they need 10 square feet of space for every foot length of snake, or 1? 2? 3? 1/2 or less? It depends on the snake itself and what it's girth should be for it being healthy, of course. I think a burm likely should have about 3.5-4 square feet minimum for each square foot of space the body takes up - my snake takes up just under 1.5 square feet, so I'd need 6 - I have just over 6, and that's WHY he needs the new cage right now.



And thank you SOOOOOOOO much for your response! I like nice people...



~Krystie



ps - sorry, I like to be thourough on everything so as people know more about what I'm trying to say and can answer me better. It either works, or annoys people... lol!

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