Good point. I have to temper my tendency to give husbandry advice on the cuff as my philosophy has been EFFICIENCY ever since I began keeping larger numbers of animals. I actually intend on probing the limits of enclosure size for various reptiles in order to produce reptiles most efficiently. I currently hold the view that the minimum space required for the animals to thermoregulate properly is sufficient. I wish to do this in order to work with as many species as possible and to be in a position to test ideas that can be answered statistically... therefore, I HAVE to have a lot of animals to work with.

Interestingly, I gave the dimensions 15" by 30" for two average adult ball pythons because I actually have a neighbor who raised two hatchlings to adulthood in just such an enclosure. Both were females. One grew to perhaps just under 4 feet, while the other one reached nearly 5 feet in length. When I first saw the enclosure I IMMEDIATELY recommended that he use a larger one. However, he emphasized that they have been there since hatching and are very healthy. Well, the animals were very healthy and beautiful on top of that (especially the larger female - I have yet to see a prettier normal, and I've seen hundreds of balls). Anyway, he loaned this female out for breeding this year and she laid 8 HUGE eggs... so, I think she was very healthy.



All feel free to blast anything I say in whatever manner you feel appropriate as I WILL NOT BE OFFENDED and I can back up any claim that I make. Most likely, if it seems that I have written something crackpottery, then I did not express myself properly and/or something has been assumed that was not actually written. Of course, I may actually write some crackpottery... you never know.

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