>>We came up with an idea for housing gravid female hogs and other colubrids when keeping them in a rack system. Instead of offering a nest box, we are making the entire rack bin a nest box. It offers the female a much wider range of nesting options.

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>>We are using a plastic lid that fits perfectly into some of our rack draws but you can use plywood.

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>>We fill the rack bin with about 5 inches of cocopeat and cover it with the lid that we drilled a hole in so the female can enter the nesting area under it.

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>>All you need to do after that is add your substrate of choice on top. Now the female will hae normal conditions on top and nesting conditions right below.

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>>We wanted to do ths to make nesting a bit more natural for the female. I can not help but notice how many people use long spagnum moss and see how odd it looks to see eggs just getting scattered all over the incubation containers and rolling around. It just seems un-naural, odd, and out of place.

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>>Here are a couple of pics.

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Cool idea Gregg. Another way to do it would be to use some thin plexiglass cut to fit the tub better. I might give it a try on a few girls this year as I have some plexi laying around.



How tall are your tubs? Mine are only 5". The 7" bus tubs would be better or even some of the large (tall 12" Iris sweater boxes. One idea maybe to have a 5-10 tub rack just for laying girls. Once they lay there eggs move them back into there home tub.



What's your thoughts on humidity now? I once thought humidity was a bad thing but have started to think it's not so bad if you have good ventilation. Kind of like with chameleons. They need higher humidity but very good ventilation.



Luckily with my FB racks I have very good ventilation so I've been playing around with using cypress and coconut husk mix for substrate.



Just some random thoughts.
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Hognose, Sand Boa & Ball Python Morphs



Greg Bennett | www.hognose.com

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