Posted by:
NWFLHerper
at Fri Nov 12 16:42:31 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by NWFLHerper ]
Here are some of the obstacles I have come up against when I have considered this king of setup in the past. For me the size of the cage became the biggest problem. That became an issue when I figured out how big the plants would have to be so they would not be trampled by the weight of the snake. This was for Pantherophis, Lampropeltis, and Pituophis. A full grown Ratsnake, Corn, Cal King, or Pine Snake, would reek havoc on most small-medium houseplants. So I need larger plants, but in order to support the root systems of those plants, I figures I would need a minimum of 12-18 inches of soil. Another alternative I considered was to just leave them in the pots and set them into holes in the floor. Leaving them in the pots and just setting them in the cage was never recall an option I considered because it didn't look like a naturalistic setup, just some potted plants in a cage. I guess you could also build some sort of contoured floor to you cage and have holes in the foam to set the plants into as well, but that was more than I was willing to take on. I think it would work well for smaller snakes such as my Scarlet Kings, but with them being such burrowers, I don't know how I would ensure they each were eating. Currently I fish them out of their substrate and put them into a small Tupperware and feed f/t pinks. I don't like the idea of leaving a dead pink in the cage and hope my snakes come up for a meal. Seems like it has the potential to waste a lot of food. I think it would work well for some of the small Tree Boas or small terrestrial snakes, but for med-large colubrids or boids, it doesn't seem very practical. For me, fake plants are the way to go. I have a naturalistic desert viv with live plants set up for a sideblotch Lizard and some Banded Geckos. That works well, but they aren't very big or destructive.
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RE: Naturalistic snake cage...a little long - NWFLHerper, Fri Nov 12 16:42:31 2004