Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay.. so I wanted to throw this idea out there to you guys who have been using the "new" technique of a deeper lay box for your hognose snakes.

Has anyone thought about creating a separate nest site like you do for bearded dragons? I bred them for years and when they were close to laying we removed them to special "lay boxes" filled with dirt and a clamp light for heat. We let them lay and then cleaned them and moved them back into their regular cages.

What do you guys think about this technique? Buying a 12" or 15" deep plastic tote, filling it with coco fiber if you like, setting up a clamp lamp for heat, and leaving the female in there once she sheds until she lays?

Why place a plastic top with a hole in it? Is this to give the female a way to get off the substrate? Or to similate something more like nesting down in a hole. It would seem to me it would be harder for her to move the substrate around with the top.

Anyway, just looking for flaws in this thought process.

Thanks to all who have been sharing similar ideas and results.

Last season I got a lot of bad eggs and I am wondering if this could have been stress and holding the eggs to long from not having a proper nest site.
-----
Gecko Babies Website
Facebook Page

FR does something similar. I will be doing the same with a large humidity gradient. Good luck!
-----
You ever talk to me like that again...and I'll turn your balls into earrings. Understand?

Go for it.

Thanks.. good luck as well! Keep us posted!
-----
Gecko Babies Website
Facebook Page

This new idea is hmmmmmmmmmm not new. In fact, thats why I get into fights here. Its old, in fact, about 40 years old. And yes, If you read back, I stated a seperate box is what IS REQUIRED to do it properly. Its what I have been saying.

The problem is, colubrids are EASY. If you put them in a cage with nothing but a water bowl, they will wait until they cannot wait then lay the eggs in the water bowl. But its stressful to the female, and bad for the eggs.

Lets skip foreward a few decades. Nesting was known and how to avoid poor nesting stress is also known and for decades.

The next problem is, the wave of rack system keeping. Which eliminates the ability to learn from the animals. The reason, you do not see it, they are hidden from the keeper. So it became, a series of steps, the keeper does this that and the other thing and its all good. Oh except if theres a problem, then its the reptiles fault because so and so(the expert) said, do this and that.

What happened was, learning stopped and went backwards. It has become a people event. If you want to know something, ask someone else. Why, because you cannot ask the real expert, the snakes, because they are hidden from you.

The snakes are a bible, yet keepers do not open their boxes and read the bible, they ask some guy, what did the bible say? Thats what is happening.

Also, the snakes have been nesting for millions of years, which is longer then the 40 I mentioned. Yet, folks overlook the importance of nesting. Birds do it, reptiles did it first.

The next next problem is, folks do not know how to think outside the box. hmmmmmmm not figuratively, literally. They seem stuck inside the rack system. So if they are going to do it. Its got to FIT WITHIN THE RULES, and the rack system rules(which is nothing about snakes)

The good part, like beardies, Hogs are not difficult, in fact, they are easy as far as snakes go. And that is also the problem, if they were difficult, the problem would not exsist.

So, as Gregg is reporting, keepers can have their cake and eat it to, and if done OK, the snakes do not eat their eggs. So yes, it can be done in a rack, deeper boxes. But is done far better outside the rack mindset. Deeper is better. But hey, hogs are easy. Thank goodness. Some snakes are not so easy.

Take varanids, they do not play this silly game. which is why they are not mass produced. Nesting is either right or the female is dead. And for most folks, right is inconvenient.

So yes, doing it right for hogs is a tiny bit inconvenient. But can be done in a rack system so inconvenience is minimal.

But what about the snakes? is it really about convenient?

These pictures were taken decades ago. New ones coming soon.

What drove me off the deep end is, I got into hogs and did my normal research. Only to find people publishing books and had pictures of hognose abortions(to uncontrolably drop eggs), as nesting. it gave me a stomach acke, seriously, it made my stomach hurt. I naively thought we as keepers were past that. To see abortions published as success is BAD/WRONG/HORRIBLE, etc etc.

Then I came here and saw the same thing. Again, stomach acke.

So for better or worse, I got the ball rolling and thank god there was Gregg, as he took it and placed it with todays keeping(blind box keeper mentality) Thank you Gregg.

Thanks for the input!

I did not mean "new" literally, I meant it as another idea as opposed to doing a deeper rack system (which I cannot) or Gregg's method of adding a plastic top to an existing "deeper" rack. I did not mean to apply that I had some great new idea that would revolutionize the hog world. Just something different from the posts I saw here.

If you went into great detail below I apologize for bring up the same subject again. But from what I read which was limited I guess was not exactly what I was trying to explain.

As for me personally, I use nest boxes and the first year I had great results, although not as your method describes. The following year I had awful results, same method. This year I have 5 gravid snakes with the same method as the previous two. I understand it's not optimal to offer a lay box inside a 5" rack, but it's all I have at the moment. Hence asking about a tote that the hogs would be moved into only during laying.

Again, thanks for your input.
-----
Gecko Babies Website
Facebook Page

No problem. It does seem new to many here, which is why I am bringing it up.

When you have a method that works sometimes and not others. It means the method is marginal.

That could mean, the method your using is marginal. Lack of depth, to much lite, no security etc. Wrong materials, etc.

Or it could mean, the method was not maintained or applied right. Dried out, to moist, etc.

You mentioned Beardeds, well they are surface nesters, that is, they dig the nesting chamber from the surface or near the surface. Which makes them fairly easy to do in captivity.

Monitors are deep nesters, they burrow many times the lenght of their bodies, make chambers, and deposit eggs. Covering all signs of nesting.

Snakes, like hogs, are can be deep nesters, or fairly shallow, in the far north. But in all cases, make a burrow and nest at the bottom, then cover it up.

One problem I see with hogs and many snakes, is folks do not pay attention to what subtrate is natural to the species. Again, with monitors, its critical. With snakes, its a real preference, but not life or death.

So you have material, humidity, temps and Security as the problems. Get each one right and you will not have problems

ITs actually very easy, Best wishes

The method I showed and am using is not 100% perfect. I can make it better. There is always room to do so. I think it is a thousand times better than some other methods I have seen though.

The reason for the plastic cover with the hole is so the female is not constantly in damp substrate. As Frank has pointed out numerous times on the forums, options need to be available. It would not be healthy for a hog to spend weeks in a damp environment without being able to get away from it as needed.

I think that offering a huge bin filled with nesting substate would be great. I would be a larger version of what I do. The female would have many more options for nesting. For me, with over a dozen breeding and gravid females, using large bins would take up lots of space.

Wether the method I am using is new or old does not matter. What is important is that people are seeing a better method and some have even used it already since I poted about it the first time.

It was a huge eye opener to see the difference in behavior when a female has a proper nesting spot. It was fun to observe and learn. Getting a nicely deposited clutch that is fertile is awesome. It is nice to actually DIG up eggs and wonder how they fit so many eggs in one little pocket of substrate.

Next season, I will be building a rack that will hold bins at least twice the size of the ones I am currently using. That will be the next step for me with trying to better the method.