Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For what it is worth I do think that FR makes some good points about a general need to improve nesting options for our snakes. I've found that there really isn't a one size fits all solution.

My rat snakes seem to prefer a drier medium and I use a deep box of barely moist long fiber sphagnum for them with great success.

My kings seem to like a more moist and heavier medium. I don't have glass in the nest box but I do layer it. The bottom and thickest layer is a 50/50 mix of play sand and shredded coconut husk, which is where the snakes actually lay. On top of that I have a layer of long fiber sphagnum and finally this is weighted down with a mat of newsprint, which facilitates the "cave" Frank talks about. In my experience the newsprint provides cover (security) and helps moderate temps and moisture while allowing adequate ventilation.

My coastal plains milks will nest in either type of medium but I still get the general sense that I've yet to hit on exactly what they need or want because they are pretty actively cruising the cage right up till they lay.

Anyway I'd be interested in hearing what others have been doing outside of the normal cook book methods.

I'm not doing anything out of the norm - but at some point, I would like to experiment - and use PVC tubes to make a light trap path to nesting boxes underneath the enclosure.

There's a road between my community where I've found a decent number of young cal kings. On the side of the road is a retaining wall with space enough between some of the bowed posts for an adult king to get in. You can see large river rocks were used as fill behind the retaining wall.

After a rain there are a ton of DOR Contia tenuis right by there - and there's some lizards (mostly fence, occasional alligator or skink) that I see there too.

Anyway - I bet in the rocks behind that retaining wall under the hill is where some local kings choose to nest. I'll take a picture of it.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Heres something I have learned over the years. Adding tubes is all about you. And its all about our lack of understanding. These animals are gifted in that, they understand how to do what they want to do, all own their own. In my experience, they would rather dig their own burrow, that have use provide one.

The point is, all you have to do is provide something close to the right conditions and they will do the rest, after all, they have been doing it since humans were monkeys and before, if you believe in that kinda thing, if not, since before man.

Next, your assumption as to where they nest is only that, in my experience, they do not need rock piles to nest. In fact, in most cases, they simply nest underground in open well lite areas, you know, where the sun will heat the ground consistantly. Vole, gopher, and other mammal holes are commonly modified. Next time someone plows up a field near there, look for hatched eggs. Cheers

You're right - adding tubes is about me.
That's still what I'm planning to do.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Yea, I have done that a bunch with many types of reptiles. They mostly don't use them, but every once in a while. hahahahahahahahahha Good luck.

If using a tube helps keep the bedding in the top compartment from falling into the incubation medeum in the bottom compartment I'd do it even if it was just for me.

Good notes...

A few years ago I was in a pinch with a pinesnake that was wandering in and out of the "standard" nest box, the one I had been offering for years. I finally put a 2' neodesha stuffed full of sphagnum into her enclosure and tilted it so the opening was facing up. She crawled in and layed shortly thereafter.

I used to use vermiculite for nesting kings and they all did fine, but i hated the mess. Sphagnum is still messy but I like it a lot better. Well I guess it doesn't matter what I like, hahaha. The females seem to like it just fine and that is what I like.

daveb
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vote in '08
chris cornell for van halen lead singer...

When I knew my corn was close to laying, I cleaned out the aspen from her 15qt Sterilite box and filled it about 80% full of my vermiculite and Bed-A-Beast mix and took her water bowl out, cleaned it and put it back in upside down. All the medium in the box was level, just about up to the air holes melted into the side. In my mind, I was thinking about a snake that may have crawled into a rotten log or something, so I was trying to recreate that sort of environment.

When she laid the eggs, she'd crawled under the upsidedown water bowl, as I suspected she might, and you could see where she'd done the circling action Frank or Tony or whoever had mentioned, pushing all the "soil" out from underneath the bowl which in effect dropped her deeper into the mix and kept the water bowl down on top of her. When she hit the bottom of the box, she dropped her eggs there mostly in a nice tight cluster. I have a short video at home I might upload tonite when I get home from work. I shot it when she had about 4 eggs out.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"