Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After doing the obligatory search, I found very little on the optimal housing requirements for southern scrubs. I know that they are very comfortable climbing as well as being on the ground, and I plan on building a display type cage for a southern I'm being given that's been rescued from a bad home. My question is: Assuming I'm willing to go through the trouble of properly maintaining the right conditions in a cage that is not only long, but also tall, would it be worth it to make an arboreal style cage for the scrub, or will it be wasted space? I own burms, a retic, a blood, and a couple boas, and understand that taking care of scrubs can be a different ball game, but I also feel I can provide a very good home for the snake, and also think it's a very beautiful snake that would look good in a larger than average display cage. If the extra height wont be used very often, I'll probably make the cage a lot shorter as to not waste valuable cage stacking space though. Just curious.
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1.0 8' albino burmese
1.0 14' normal burmese
1.0 4' normal retic
0.1.1 5' bcc
0.0.1 malaysian blood
0.0.1 nile monitor
3.0 cats
and a breeder rat colony

I've got my breeding trio of Southern Scrubs in 3x2x2ft cages. They are doing fine, though I'm going to be moving them into 4x2x2ft cages soon.

Tim

Check the link below.
We have a link from the main page to a paper we wrote on our experience with Southerns in captivity. I can't rmember but we also may have some info for you as well under the "Spitfire Question Corner" link.
If you have any further questions, fell free to call or email us and we'd be happy to help.

-Yasser

Spitfire Reptiles

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Thanks for the response. I actually read EVERYTHING on your site before posting this question. I found the article you wrote very informative, and figured it was safe to make a couple assumptions about creating an ideal enclosure from the information you provided about their natural habitat, but didn't see very much on recommended housing for adult snakes. What do you use for your adults? I'd be interested in your oppinion as far as both minimum dimensions for an adult (which I'll probably double, it's going to be a display enclosure), how much height you'd think would be utilized by an adult, AND if you have any more information available on your possibile barneck offspring. I'm very interested in a cpative bred animal if you think you'll have them. Thanks for everything so far and in advance for anything else you can help me with.

-Jeff
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1.0 8' albino burmese
1.0 14' normal burmese
1.0 4' normal retic
0.1.1 5' bcc
0.0.1 malaysian blood
0.0.1 nile monitor
3.0 cats
and a breeder rat colony

We house most of our adult scrubs in cages measuring
4'long x2.3'wide x2'high. And to be honest, they don't use all that space very often but it definitely works well for us when we house pairs or trio together for breeding purposes. But IMO, sufficiently sized water dishes are something becoming more and more overlooked over the last few years in herp keeping. Folks seems to be adopting the opinion that snakes don't need dishes large enough to immerse themselves in, only large enough to drink. Well, that won't work for scrubs. They can spend days in the water and it defintiely helps keep humidity high and helps them have consisitnely clean sheds. So with a larger water pan, you will perhaps need to have the floor space to put one down and still have some dry floor space.
You can expand the aformentioned dimensions a bit if you'd like, but bigger is not always better. The snake could feel less secure in a very large enclosure thereby losing it's feeding response. Also cage conditions can end up being harder to adjust such as temp gradient and humidity. But if I were to build a grand display for a scrub, I would go with a cage that has the same dimensions as above but perhaps taller, maybe 4 feet in height. Sturdy branches will be well used.
How large is the snake now anyway?
As far a Barneck babies go, we'll have to take up that conversation via email.

-Yasser
Spitfire Reptiles

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I'm surprised how small of a cage they need. Especially for multiple snakes during breeding time (although that does make things a bit easier.) I figured they wouldn't need quite the same ammount of space as a equally long retic or burm with their slender body size, but still figured they'd need some room to stretch out a bit. Or maybe I'm just expecting the southerns to get longer than they usually do? I guess I've read a lot about how big they CAN get, and was planning on having to house a snake larger than 10 feet. Would that be as likely as a 30 foot retic? Please forgive my ignorance, I know I must sound like I'm not ready to take on this animal, but if you could see how poorly it's being taken care of right now, you'd understand why I'm so eager to bring it to my home. Anyway, to answer your question, the snake is currently about 6 feet.
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1.0 8' albino burmese
1.0 14' normal burmese
1.0 4' normal retic
0.1.1 5' bcc
0.0.1 malaysian blood
0.0.1 nile monitor
3.0 cats
and a breeder rat colony

You should expect the snake to easily reach 10 feet. All of the adult amethistina we have are 11-13.5 feet. But they are nowhere near as thick as a retic. An adult Southern of average weight at 12 feet should weigh roughly 15-20 lbs. They are no bigger in mass than a 6-7 foot Redtail Boa. Throw out much of the info you have read about these snakes...the Net is full of dated, regurged, generalized info primarily based on info about the Australian Scrub. The Aussies can reach much larger sizes, commonly reaching over 16 feet and 50 lbs.
One thing I must recommend is do not treat therm like many folks treat Burms and Retics. A Scrub needs to be fed according to how it looks (skinny or fat), not what the date is on the calendar. They are supposed to be long thin snakes and fattening them up has proven to cause early "unexplained" death. I would typically feed a 6 footer an appropriately sized rat (small-med rat) every 7-21 days. When you get this snake, if it is underweight, start out slow with smaller than usual meals every week until it slowly gains some weight back, perhaps for the first 4-6 meals. Then bring the food size back to normal if all is going well.

-Yasser
Spitfire Reptiles

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Thank you so much for all your information; you've been extremely helpful to me. I'm going to begin building the cage on monday, and as per your advice (and the size of a conveniently sized unoccupied area in my snake room) I'm thinking about building it about 4 feet long, 2 feet deep, and 3 feet high, pretty much exactly what you suggested just a bit taller for better veiwing and some vertical space for the scrub to utilize. I decided against going a full 4 feet in height because it sounds like it might not even get used, and a shorter cage will give me more space on top for stacking. Until the cage is complete, I was planning on keeping the snake in a 40 gallon glass aquarium that the snake is currently living in. As for the advice on keeping an area of water large enough for the snake to completely submerge in, that's always a must in all my snake cages (I have a 4 ft x 2ft rubbermaid for my 14ft. burm even). I keep my central american boas in 4x2 cages, and I've found small plastic cat litter pans that fit perfectly in one side, if I can expect the scrub to have a similar body mass, then it sounds like the same sized pan will work fine. As far as providing the snake with enough dry land to use, the pan only takes up about 1/3 of the floor space, and with the extra height I was thinking about adding a second level to half the cage so there will be more usable area, and more areas for the snake to go to thermoregulate. Hopefully everything goes according to plan with the construction. I've built all the cages that my other snakes are in though, and I've learned a lot so I think it should be a breeze this time. I'm going to give this guy some time to adjust and give myself some time to adjust dealing with scrubs, but there should be enough room on top of this cage for a barneck...

Anyway, thanks again, you've been a huge help.

-Jeff
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1.0 8' albino burmese
1.0 14' normal burmese
1.0 4' normal retic
0.1.1 5' bcc
0.0.1 malaysian blood
0.0.1 nile monitor
3.0 cats
and a breeder rat colony

>>Thank you so much for all your information; you've been extremely helpful to me. I'm going to begin building the cage on monday, and as per your advice (and the size of a conveniently sized unoccupied area in my snake room) I'm thinking about building it about 4 feet long, 2 feet deep, and 3 feet high, pretty much exactly what you suggested just a bit taller for better veiwing and some vertical space for the scrub to utilize. I decided against going a full 4 feet in height because it sounds like it might not even get used, and a shorter cage will give me more space on top for stacking. Until the cage is complete, I was planning on keeping the snake in a 40 gallon glass aquarium that the snake is currently living in. As for the advice on keeping an area of water large enough for the snake to completely submerge in, that's always a must in all my snake cages (I have a 4 ft x 2ft rubbermaid for my 14ft. burm even). I keep my central american boas in 4x2 cages, and I've found small plastic cat litter pans that fit perfectly in one side, if I can expect the scrub to have a similar body mass, then it sounds like the same sized pan will work fine. As far as providing the snake with enough dry land to use, the pan only takes up about 1/3 of the floor space, and with the extra height I was thinking about adding a second level to half the cage so there will be more usable area, and more areas for the snake to go to thermoregulate. Hopefully everything goes according to plan with the construction. I've built all the cages that my other snakes are in though, and I've learned a lot so I think it should be a breeze this time. I'm going to give this guy some time to adjust and give myself some time to adjust dealing with scrubs, but there should be enough room on top of this cage for a barneck...
>>
>>Anyway, thanks again, you've been a huge help.
>>
>>-Jeff
>>-----
>>1.0 8' albino burmese
>>1.0 14' normal burmese
>>1.0 4' normal retic
>>0.1.1 5' bcc
>>0.0.1 malaysian blood
>>0.0.1 nile monitor
>>3.0 cats
>>and a breeder rat colony
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I have had several scrubs in over the last 10 years, and I have found that they love to pirch. Not like an emerald, but if you give them a "deck" then they will sit up high. If you are only going to put branches in there then you better make them big. I have found that even 11" animals will climb alot. However they will do fine in a short cage, but to answer your question they would utilize all the space given.

Thanks,
Jeremy