I post this because the technique I describe was news to me. Apologies to all who have known about it all along, or figured it out themselves. I have had failures with captive herps in the past, at times, I suspect, perhaps due to heat creep. I hope that all who keep warm-weather herps can benefit.
I was visiting the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum a while back, and talked to one of the keepers about keeping HL in indoor cages. They found that the HL would do well initially, then decline. Like many of us, they were using a heat source at one end of the cage, but what was happening, and I suspect it's happening in many home setups, is the heat would creep the the unheated end of the cage and the entire cage would become uncomfortably warm. HERPS NEED TO BE ABLE TO ESCAPE THE WARMTH OF BASKING TEMPS AND GO SOMEPLACE WHERE IT IS DOWNRIGHT COOL. Once a herp has achieved its desired temp, it goes off to live the rest of its life--it doesn't like to be hot all the time. A properly heated herp carries the heat from its basking period around for some time, using it to conduct business, then goes back to re-heat when it runs low, but it NEEDS TO BE ABLE TO GET INTO AIR THAT IS COOLER THAN BASKING TEMPS.
The Desert Museum solved this problem by venting the end of the cage where the heat source was located and installing a fan to SUCK THE HEAT OUT OF THE CAGE AT THE SAME END AS THE HEAT SOURCE. The result is that the herp gets its heat from radiant energy via the heat source rather than from hot air that has built up under the heat source. This is just how it works in nature. The air under the heat source was the same temp as the air at the cool end of the cage, since it was being drawn from the cool end, but the substrate was warmed by the lamp, and the HL were warmed by the lamp.
After initiating this procedure, the Desert Museum noticed a profound improvement in the health, feeding, and behavior of the HL that were held in indoor cages. A cage of sufficient length must be used for this system to be effective. I would think 36 inches and up in length would be necessary.
The staff at the Museum also noticed that HL were intimidated by being sprayed directly with water to drink, and that a better drinking response was obtained by spraying the ceiling of the cage and allowing the water to drip onto the HL. They speculated it was more like natural rain that way.
While I applaud the fabulous success of captive breeding in recent years (I go back to the days when nothing was cb), and I'm grateful for the great diversity and availability of quality cb herps, I'm not a supporter of keeping HL or other wc herps in cages; I don't accept the human tendency to make backhanded assumptions about the psyche of reptiles, and to dismiss the possiblity that they find captivity to be dismal. Cb herps are, in my own backhanded assumption, less likely to miss their freedom than wild caught. However, if the hobby and science of herpetology is to have founder stock for future generatons of cb animals, that founder stock will have to be wc. Please consider the info in this post as you set up housing for your herps, as it may be just what's needed to help you turn the last corner to success, and give your captives a bit better life.
