Posted by:
georgio
at Sun Jan 18 18:54:46 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by georgio ]
Hey Ed,
In response to this post and your email here are my thoughts. First off, I think the Uro's REALLY like natural dirt. I can't begin to say how happy and natural Nebu has been in his cage. That being said I think we have a difficult problem since we keep Egyptians. If Boulder created a tunnel system as elaborate and long as Nebu's in comparison to his size it would be much longer than 10 feet long, and Nebu seemed like he wanted to dig even more (he was at the bottom of his huge rubbermaid bin). I'm not sure how it would feel to them to have a hole that was not dug themselves...they do not seem to really recognize it as their own. Boulder is constantly trying to dig further into his hide, making one part of his finger nails all worn down. What I want to do for him is create a cage that first has a thin few inch layer of dirt. Then I'm going to fill a 2' wide, 3' long and 6 inch high storage bin with dirt. It has a hinged top. I'm going to cut a hole in the side and start a small cave in the hardened dirt. Hopefully he will recognize this as a good place to dig and make his hole in the bin. Because of his size I think he will create tunnels that will turn out like a maze if viewed from the top with the lid off (since it's only 6 inches high he'd probably not have a "ceiling" on his tunnels if you understand what I'm saying). This way I could monitor how he was doing if he did not come out of his hole for a while. We'll see if it works. I have a suspicion he will start digging elsewhere once he can't dig his hole anymore which could be a problem.
You asked for a little more info on the structure of Nebu's tunnel. It was strange because it spiraled around counterclockwise about three full circles before reaching the bottom. The grade on the tunnel was not very steep and the spiraling could have just been because of the limitation of the rubbermaid bin. It seems logical to make a hole spiraled however as larger predators (such as us) could not stick their hands/feet into the hole to fish them out.
One idea you could do is make your synthetic tunnel system and then fill it with dirt. If you had large pvc pipes say for the tunnels filled with dirt they would naturally dig them out and may have a higher affinity for them as burrows.
Anyway, lets keep brainstorming!
Peter
PS: Don't we all wish we had the space for 10 foot feeding troughs filled with thousands of pounds of dirt...oh well =)
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RE: Idea for a fancy STACK.... - georgio, Sun Jan 18 18:54:46 2004