My house as a whole will have a chain link security fence, the enclosure will not be out in the open. I may provide another fence inside the yard to separate the enclosure area from my yard, i am still undecided on that. As i stated, i intend to be moving to a very unpopulated area. the reason that i haven't put something like this into affect before is that i have lived in places that were too populated for such an endeavor. I have been in contact with the AL officials, there are no codes there, as they are in FL. i know that Haast has some sort of open air enclosure, but i have not seen his. i actually saw my first pits as a small child in southwest VA. back then every spring and summer, snake pits popped up beside the road. people brought in all types of local snakes and dropped them in a counter-sunk pit. i guess it was about 6 feet deep. they provided you a long stick you could move the snakes around with. i think you paid something like $.50 to go in and look at them. of course, as i child i didn't realize they were being mistreated. i just enjoyed seeing them. so, i have wanted a set up like this since i was probably 5 years old. of course as my knowledge expended, the design in my head changed quite a bit. I am looking for as natural of a set up as possible. I am not planning to move the rattlesnakes i have been keeping the last 10 years out of the slide rack and into the pit. during the spring and summer i get called out quite often to remove snakes from people's yards and barns. with an adult snake, you can not relocate them, they will not adjust. the only options are to leave them alone, kill them, or move them to captivity. so, i am thinking i will take the removals and use the outside enclosure for them. so, when a nature center calls and says, chuck, our rattlesnake just died, we need one, i have a reserve. also, i am hoping they breed. I can return those off spring to the wild in locations with little human activity. I think its going to be important to have access to the den. I think the hay will have to be replaced each fall and of course from time to time, one will roll inside the den. I know that plumbers burry water lines 18 inches to prevent freezing, so that is why i am thinking they need to be at least 18 inches deep. so, i guess i am looking at just digging up and replanting the dens every fall. i have decided to cap the PVC leading to the den. as part of my feed back, one keeper had something like this set up. he had an EDB come out one day in Jan when the afternoon temp was high. When the sun went down, the temp dropped very quickly and he got stuck out and died. during the 4 coldest months, i plan to cap the lines to keep them in and during the warm months, will probably cap to keep them out....lessen the chance of one dying in the den. as for feed. good idea on the auto feeder. will keep around the prey i toss in and also attract wild mice, rats, squirrels, ect. i like it. Haast has to extract from his collection, so he keeps a detailed record. When he extracts one, he tub feeds it. I am not planning on working with them individually at all. I am looking for a set up that will be close to self supporting once it is initially set up. I don't want to track down each snake to feed it. I may look at some sort of lip on the walls, but i only plan to keep pit vipers in there. they are not good climbers to Begin with and should i have one that is over 4 feet, it would probably warrant going inside to one of my many breeding project. Thanks for the information. and i am not too concerned about those that aren't taking it seriously, they know very little about what i am dealing with and their opinions would not have been useful any way.


Samuel 'Chuck' Hurd
Professional Educator / Venomous Reptile Curator
www.ChuckHurd.com
423.580.7513 (txt capable)
Chuck Hurd Serpentology

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