A bit of a joke, hmmmmmm snakes point of view, your point of view, snakes point of view, your point of view. Thats an easy one, snakes every time. What would you expect of me??? and why? I also pick the snakes over me all the time. I am always smacking myself around. Its takes a good smacking, but i come around sooner or later.



I already said, you can do whatever you want. Your snake, your cage. But I still question ROCKS. If you do them safely, they need to be adhered to the floor, with takes up needed substrate space. If you lay them on top, good luck with that, sand with heavy things on top is a bad combination.



Your confusion is between their homes(microhabitat) in nature and their habitat. THeir homes are in dirt/sand/ground. Their overall habitat may have rocks and trees somewhere. But they do not use those rocks and trees. If you want to make THEM HAPPY, give them a home. Give them what they use to make a home. Not something to crawl on. Both is ok, but you really should get the home thing down first. I worked on long island and there they would say, Rocks {forget about it) no explination to follow.



You can fit a hognose home area in the parmeters of a medium to large cage, you cannot fit their habitat, 1. in your house 2. in a building or 3. on your block. Their known usable territory can be aprox a 1/2 mile area. Their home burrow system, a few meters.



If you want to mimic something and call it natural, then please consider mimicing their home area.



You see this comes back to you and it was covered in the first posts. If you want a pretty cage and call it naturalistic, do whatever you want. But if you want naturalistic to be about hogs in nature, then your approach is off. But you can still do whatever you like.



Hopefully somebody reading this will have a lite go off in their head. Whats important to the animal, and what is pretty to the animal, may not be the same as what you think is important or pretty. What I am discribing is a report from nature, where they are free to choose.



If I were to discribe hognose habitat, pretty would not be included in the discription.



Lastly, if what your asking of me is to confirm your thoughts, I see no benefit it that, not to me, you or the snakes, or anyone reading this. So I am bound to stand up for the snakes.



The reason I seem stubborn is, Our cages are so small, the best we can do is provide a tiny tiny solution. We have already taken away the luxuries and frills. We have taken away everything but the actual HOLE they live in. In nature they have systems of holes and know them like you know your house, no thats wrong, better then you know your house.



The magic of hogs is, how they make these houses, how they manuver through the maze of holes and know whats been there, yesterday, the day before. All without lite. So how do they make their holes, dig with their nose like its a shovel?



Thats only a start. they poke their heads thru the ground, and then compact the soil by tighening up their bodies. Like an earthworm only better. Push, compact, push compact. Its not wonder they use soft sandy loamy soils Cheers and junk

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