Reptile & Amphibian Forums

a meeting LOL.

Only mine was at home, and my angry wife the instructor.

No more new snakes for me (and my collection has been reduced to just a few animals now.)

Anyway, I work out more now, and my guitar playing has gotten better. I guess that is one positive of not spending time with a bigger collection.

But I'd rather have the snakes. That is the sign of a true addict. Hi. My name is Mark, and I'm a herpetolholic.

BTW, bought my son a treefrog the other day. My wife didn't say no treefrogs

I'm in a weak moment bro....the wheeels are spinning....LOL

Coincidentally I am now down to just my Gaigeae which I love best!

(And a few Bullsnake Babies from JCHERRY...Weak moment)

My goal is also working on my Bass playing and trying to excercise (inconsistent)

I am liking not spending my life cleaning cages....but sometimes.....LOL Misery appreciates company Always a pleasure Mark. Stay well. !

HI MARK! (Responds the crowd at the herpaholics meeting)
Todd Hughes

I'm an old bachelor, so I have to be particularly careful. If I let myself become addicted, I'd have no wife to bring me back to reality.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

what i would sound like at the intro:
hi, my name is jason wilson and i am addicted to collecting king snakes.i have in the last 8 months bought 43 kings and turned my garage into a snake den. in this time i have lied to my wife(i have had this snake for ever dear)(i traded for this one)(i traded two for this one so see the collection is going down) (no i went to work today and found this snake at break time)and used funds that i was not supposed to know we had (hehe).i have lost my checkbook personal credit cards(wife took'em)and the will to look at my gold fish.
so if anyone in the crowd has any for trade i will see you after the meeting i have pics of mine in my wallet.hahahaha
jason wilson

LMAO!!! HI, my name is Todd and I'm a snakeaholic. I have used all my frequent flyer miles on snake trips instead of taking the wife on vacation. I've blown two engines, and been through three vehicles, and I am eyeing the second car for "another midnight run"! I lose sleep at night and can't seem to concentrate at work due to spring immergences and breeding taking place. I know if I don't get help soon, I may lose it all. Well, I'll get help next winter during brumation.......
Todd Hughes

... our reptiles are in great shape! that is to funny! i saw a snake today i wanted so bad! i just looked at it held it three times, stayed with it for like an hour. the lady at the counter thought i was a mental case lol. i just could not leave without it but then i knew i could not go home with it.i even tried to call a friend to see if he wanted to buy it! man it is driving me up the wall! i know when i get hatchlings this year i will be in heaven. all those new snakes-but then i got to sell them off!that is going to be the hard part. i will be finding a new hold back every day!i think i am like Lenny,"tell me about the rabbits George."hahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaha

What kind of snake was it that caught your attention so strongly? What about it was special or different?

The pet store near my home allows me to come once a week or so and "socialize" their snakes. Okay, mostly I just carry them around and chat with the managers/clerks. I also try to persuade them to use better husbandry techniques. Their desert king doesn't look so good, and that is heartbreaking.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

i just got a bull so i am really starting to like these types of snakes.

There's a gopher snake at the shop near my home. He's attractive, but gophers don't entice me as pets. I caught a little bull snake once. I don't remember much about him. I was walking in a state park and came across him. I carried him for a little while and then put him back near where I found him.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

cool! hey Bill how is your king snake habitat working out? i'm sure you are doing spot cleaning every few days. do you feel that you are keeping it healthy inside of the tank? man i envy you if it is. i would love to have such a set up! it looks like it is perfect for a king. the thing that i would worry about the most is that it would poop in some place that i would miss over and over. then a bacteria would make it though the immune system of that cal king. i'm not trying to scare you i think you show a lot of conscern for your snake and are looking out for it over any will to have a cool looking snake tank. i just was wondering if you had some way of sifting through every inch of soil and litter? i am thinking of making such a set up but i am scared to death that i would over look something or spend every weekend pouring out everything and resetting it up! i have found that if it is not easy then i will back slide.that is a human fault and you are not allowed many of them without something bad happening!
really what i am asking is- is it going good? i know you are kinda testing it out- how do you feel it is going?has been about a month now?
thanks
jason

I need to start another thread on my cage experiment and go over a number of things that I've seen. I hope it would be interesting and would love to hear what people think. I'll give you the preview version.

First, I'm still very pleased with this experiment, but the results aren't what I expected. My snake is still spending about 80 to 90 percent of his time under that blue plastic dish. Except for the week just before he shed, he hasn't retreated into the substrate not to be seen for days at a time. I was prepared for that to happen and in some ways would have welcomed it. On the other hand, I like having access to him, and his being under the bowl means that I can lift the bowl anytime and pick him up.

I've found another bowl exactly like the one that he uses. I'm going to introduce that bowl into the cage in the next version. I'll be curious to see what he does when he must choose between two or three versions of his favorite bowl. Will he stay with one of them or rotate? Will his location depend on temperature? One of the bowls is a different color, so I may play with that variable.

Secondly, while he spends most of his time sleeping under the bowl, he likes to play in the substrate. I can see all kinds of voids next to the glass where he was obviously burrowing along and hit glass. I can see a clear entrance in the Eco Earth in the front. I can see a place where he's burrowed through the Repti-bark under the edge of his "hilltop" water bowl. I can look into that observation port in the lower corner and see a tunnel going upwards into the rest of the substrate. He doesn't live in the substrate as I thought he would from other comments that I received, but he seems to play in it as if the substrate were a jungle gym for kingsnakes. (He's currently out from under the bowl and watching me type.)

Thirdly, I'm not yet worried about the defecation issue. I need to chart his bowel movements to be certain, but I'm pretty sure that he's on a more or less weekly schedule. Often, that schedule coincides with my holding him so that his favorite place to have a bowel movement is my shirt. For all of the unpleasant aspects of this behavior, it keeps me from worrying about cage cleanliness. When he's gone in the cage, he's usually gone on top of the substrate and not in the substrate. Last week, he had a big bowel movement on top of one of the tiles that I put in the cage. That one was very easy to clean. Unless I find evidence otherwise, I'm going to continue believing that he's only eliminating waste once a week, and I'm not going to worry about his cage until I'm not finding his waste above ground.

At this point, I'm not planning to sift the whole substrate on a regular basis. I've heard some people claim that too much cleaning causes stress because the keeper ends up invading the snake's space so much. I'd like to raise this issue when I write a new thread on the topic. I tend to believe that he likes being familiar with the burrows that he puts in the substrate and that he'd feel stressed if I disturbed them every week. I'll look through the substrate very closely when I change the cage, and if I find feces buried in the substrate, then I'll make some kind of change.

One comment that you made has changed my husbandry. You mentioned bleaching your snakes' bowls every week. I don't trust bleach enough to do that. If I have to bleach, I'll end up soaking the bowl afterwards in water for an hour or two (draining and refilling with fresh water four or five times) to remove all bleach. However, I now have a chlorhexidrine solution prepared, and I'm going to spray each bowl about every four to seven days. If I start with fresh water in freshly cleaned bowl, I'll top of the water on the next day or day after. By clean +3 days, I'll sop out all of the old water and fill fresh. By clean +4 or +5 days, I'll sop out the old water, clean with chlorhexidrine, and fill fresh. He has two water bowls, so I can put them on alternating schedules that will mean that he always has a source of clean +3 water at worst.

Anyway, I want to make a chart of major health events for him. I need to do that soon. When I'm done, I'll try to post another big update.

Bill

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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

Bill,
I have followed what the larger breeders do to make maintenance easier. Instead of wasting a lot of time having fun scrubbing out and bleaching water bowls I use a 4" pvc pipe coupler from Home Depot and insert a 16oz. deli cup into it and just throw away the old deli container as needed and replace with a new one.(The pipe coupler prevents the water from getting knocked over) You can buy bunches of Deli containers at Dollar type stores very cheaply.

I have found if you can simplify/streamline maintenance you can keep from feeling overwhelmed by the hobby. Hope this helps. Nice looking snake. Bob

Show a pic of your water bowl holder, Bob!
Todd Hughes