Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone! It's been awhile and Big Red just shed this week and is looking as imposing and massive as ever at just shy of two years old. Nearly (probably) six feet long now too. Thanks for looking...

very nice!

I especially like the tail color and markings!

(I enjoyed meeting you last week....)

JG

Thanks John! Good to know that you and I are in the same town at times. Look me up when you get back to the "Ho". Would also like to hook up with you over in Tuckson sometime.

Cheers,

Jim

Awesome! He looks like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of bulls! Now I know what to expect size wise from my bulls, who are just over a year old this May. I think they will still be comfortable in their 2 x 2 x 4 ft cage next year.
I am curious; is the tank he is in his permanent home? It looks sort of small, but hard to tell from photo angle. Does he get any substrate to burrow in?

Hey Pyro,

Arnold may well be a good name for this guy! Or is it Ahnold? His current tank is getting a bit small for him. It's 18" x 36" x 18". Also, I use cage carpet and two big pre-form hides for him in addition to his big water bowl. Occasionally, he will "burrow" under the cage carpet, but only when it gets colder in the room than he would like.

What works well for your snakes? Seems like you have developed some very creative concepts for cage, substrates, hides, etc. Me, I am into simplicity as I have so little time for cleaning and other maintenance.

Would like to upgrade the size of his cage and am open to ideas.

Thanks,

Jim

The "baby" bulls' cage. This is a vertical cage set on it's side and what used to be the bottom end screened in. A sheet of laminate on the floor, then about four inches of aspen. The tricky part was supplying the snakes with a warm hide. I took a 4 watt UTH and attached it to the upper side of the laminate, and put their cardboard soda flat hide and one of their moss hides over that.

With the soda flat off to show them in their warm hide. What used to be the front door is now the roof. The cord to the UTH goes up through the roof between the door and the roof. There is enough give that the cord is not pinched. My infrared gun rates this as a very cozy nest, even on cold night. Also there is a thermometer attached to the UTH.
Nobody has rubbed their nose on the wire (my big Pacific has a cage just like this) because they have ample room to stretch out in.
In the summer this cage can go outdoors for natural light.

The first photo does not show the cool end hide, but they do have another soda flat on the cool end. I like the soda flats because when they poop on it I can just burn it in the wood stove.

Very creative! All of my male snakes (I have four) do a lot of "cruising" within a month or so after I wake them up in the spring. Big Red would need something fairly substantial that he could not force his way out of as he is VERY strong.

I chose simplicity in my setup partly for schedule reasons and in a large way due to isolation in a small desert town a LONG way from typical supply routes. If Big Red were to defecate in some other substrate, I would be burning through a lot of chips.

I like the 2' x 2' x 4' dimension, just need to find a suitable replacement to the current "tank". My only other (current) Pit that will ever get as large is a female affinis that is now pushing four feet.

I like the rack concept illustrated in several posts below but I also like to see and interact with the snakes regularly. If I was a breeder (which I am not), the rack systems may have greater appeal.

Thanks for the ideas though,

Jim

What a face on that beast!!! Great color too. Very impressive.
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See all my snakes at SerpenTrack.com

Thanks Brad! and to look back at October, 2008 when I extracted that dude from the equivalent of a night-crawler container on the day the FedEx guy delivered him to me. I never would have imagined a snake this large in less than two years. Ahnold (by body mass) and Jethro (by appetite), Big Red has sufficed up to this point...

The rest of my family is very thankful for lots of cage carpet and scented candles...