Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For those of you who dont know, Ive been raising five bosc hatchlings together and logging my observations since the beggining of April. Ive dubbed them; Allie (Allie McBeale, cause shes tiny), Bilbo (cause hes funny looking like Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings...to bad he doesnt look like Legolas), Psycho(cause, well, hes nuts), Loco(cause hes crazy, but not quite psycho), and Barney(cause hes as benevolent as that big purple dino).
Well, allie has just been voted off the island She has always been the "runt" and just never has caught up with the rest of the group. She is now 1/4th of the size of the others and I feel it is time that she be removed for good, or I might find her dead one day. Barney, the big fat one is just as calm and docile as ever. Even with the very limited handeling that he recieves, he rarely even gets huffy when I reach in at him -Secretly hes my fav. Ive removed a lot of their rocks to allow easier viewing for feeding and such. I still have trouble monitoring their growth, because they like to hide most of the time. Ive started keeping their light off more often, because they tend to be more active in the dark, and its just lit enough that I can sort of see them. I have seen absolutely no agression among them. They ignore eachother most of the time, except when food is involved. Ive seen some donimance/ submission in these times, but a very hungry bosc isnt going to back down if he wants it bad enough. So conclusively, I havent observed any behaviour in my Boscs that would lead me to believe that they have anysort of complex social structure. -At least as juvies. Well see what develops within the year as they reach sexual maturity

-Michelle

Just a casual question, what are you keeping them in and what are you going to put them in as adults? What size are they? Sounds like they're doing great. Good luck and keep us posted.

Scott

Ive had them in a 100 gal aquarium, and they are currently all around 1ft length, with a girth that is almost too wide for my thumb and index finger to reach around. They all are eating small adult mice(all except Allie that is) on almost a daily basis. Theres a pretty supple cricket population that continues to thrive in their enclosure as well, so they have continuous snacking priviledges In the next couple months they are moving to a much larger enclosue...my b-friend and I havent yet come to an agreement on the size, as he will be the one to build it. I think 8ft long x 4ft wide x 4ft tall would be good, not to mention easy to build since wood/plastic sheets come in
the size 8x4. I plan on raising them all together for the extent of their lives, unless something comes up that makes me think otherwise(like Allies situation for instance). The point is so that I can observe social behaviours in this sort of a situation with multi individuals raised together. Time will only tell. I suppose ideally I would want to do this sort of observational research in a much larger area...maybe a couple acres, but since that is WAY beyond my means, Im sort of limited to this. So I guess in that regard, Im simply trying to understand how captivity effects group behaviour. ....or something along those lines. I guess I still need to really narrow down the parameters of what Im trying to accomplish here.

Here's to back yard "field research".

-Michelle