Posted by:
RichH
at Tue Aug 26 07:20:41 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by RichH ]
Charles, you appear to be heading in the right direction. One of the mistakes I made years ago was poor planning when adding herps. My interest began when I was a child in the 60's. During my teen years I maintained a small group of various herps which eventually led into over 400 herps during my 20's - mid 30's. Mind you I purchased all my rodents and kept many herps in assorted forms of containment from glass aquaria to many brands, types of plastic ware available. Was much work that took alot of the enjoyment out of keeping as it was a crazy schedule I implemented in mantaining these herps as I deemed adequate. To this day I still look for better ways as to provide as best an environment as possible for my captives.
The products we now have access to is quite a change to what was available back then. You are much wiser then I was when first starting out as I added supplies for the most part after my acquisitions.
There is actually a wealth of knowledge in the current and old forums in regards to rack building (some with actual plans) as well as rodent feeding and breeding info. Check the forum on caging as well as the feeder section. I was shocked on the actual amount contributed myself when I started taking to rodent production as well. Much out there and I have been testing various setups listed seeing which would be more appropriate with my needs.
Basically these days I use various manufactured rack systems for ease of maintenance with most using flexwatt heat tape. I do also have some that use heating cables as well. I have gone thru many styles of thermostats and find most reliable but still use a back up system in case of a therm sticking open and possibly
overheating the racks. Current setups consist of Ranco therms backed up by Alife therms as a shutoff if heating exceeds specific temps I set.
I no longer mantain such a large group of herps as I did years ago cutting back to approximately 25% of what I kept then but I do find for me less is better as I have more time to observe the individual herps mantained here instead of focusing more on a mantainence schdule.
Rich Hebron
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Welcome aboard!!!! - RichH, Tue Aug 26 07:20:41 2003