In my opinion it is entirely dependent on the reptile in question. Although my yellow anaconda is larger than my mexican black king snake I will probably move the king snake to a larger enclosure before the anaconda. The anaconda uses around 20% of its current enclosure which to be honest looks slightly to small for it but i can't see how she would benefit from a larger one. Her routine over the course of a month consists of this: under hide box,on top of hide box, under hide box, in water bowl, under hide box,on top of hide box. She seems perfectly content with this and appears somewhat uncomfortable when in other areas of the enclosure. My king snake on the other hand moves all about its enclosure constantly,moves the hides around,gets in the water,gets under the water bowl,burrows in the aspen shavings, etc.

Many reptiles do get stressed out in larger enclosures, especially if they do not have plenty of hide areas, stress can cause them to stop eating or for parasites and bacteria to get out of control. Those things can cause death, not getting as much exercise as it would in the wild most likely will not. And most lizards definitely require more room than the average snake, you can't fault snake keepers for tailoring their husbandry to snakes instead of lizards...

[ Hide Replies ]

• excessive tank size - trex8692, Tue Apr 15 22:03:29 2008
• RE: excessive tank size - cagemaster, Wed Apr 16 10:04:17 2008
• RE: excessive tank size - trex8692, Wed Apr 16 15:36:48 2008
• RE: excessive tank size - coffeecreature, Thu Apr 17 14:22:35 2008
• RE: excessive tank size - Luis, Mon Apr 21 23:02:04 2008
• RE: excessive tank size - silentchaos, Wed Apr 23 20:43:11 2008
• RE: excessive tank size - Luis, Sun Apr 27 05:12:28 2008