Reptile & Amphibian Forums

To ponder what you guys are putting forth really gets you to wondering about the ethics of keeping our animals in sterile sweater boxes and keeping them like living jewels ( no condemnation for anyone using sewater boxes) A lot to think about. Thanks for the thoughts.
Bob.

It does make you think, But, one of my rationalizations for keeping kingsnakes was the fact, that I found individuals that lived in tiny spots their whole life, not sweaterbox tiny, but in an area of a square meter. I found the snakes, the sheds etc, tracks etc.

Of course this was in an area just north of mexico city, that did not get hot or cold, so they did not have to go down to escape extreme weather.

For Phil from below, Getulus kings provided me with the model for this type of colony. Not montane or other snakes. They were Cal kings, but getulus just the same. This model I then applied to montane kings(pyros) and I became know as one who could find pyros very commonly. Do you know Don Hamper, ask him.

It seems to me, when you start saying things like, that species and montane, but not these, it only brings up one thing to me. That you have not seen it, so it must not be there. Please don't feel bad, we all went thru that. The truth is, getulus kings do live in the manner we are discussing. Heck, even many species of monitor do the same.

Please remember, I did explain that any population includes dense areas, not so dense areas and areas of sparse, numbers.

I believe the next step you should take is to experiment. That is, test this in some of the spots you know.

Also, please understand, I will not explain how to find these areas over the internet, just think of the damage a person could do if they understood this. Not you, others.

Oh and one more very important thing. If you touch the snakes, it totally changes the dynamics. In HKM and my, study site, we do touch them. In my other sites, gilas, diamondbacks, lyresnakes, torts, I do not touch them. There is a very real difference. On our rattlesnake site, we pit tag the animals, and to me its a bit like playing checkers, each time we make a move, they counter with a move of their own. On the other sites, they do not make those counter moves. They simply go about their business. Good luck FR

FR, thanks for the discussion! I actually had a long response planned out but I have been hit by a serious time crunch that is going to occupy much time over the next few days. At some point I would like to hear more about what you saw in the field that gave you the beliefs you now have. The idea of long term pair bonding and culturally learned behavior in getula intrigues me. Obviously you are basing this on something. Without telemetry or some other solution to track down specimens I don't see how you can be sure on exactly what the relationships are between specimens over the course of an annual cycle. I would like to hear more about your methods and how you are able to solve these dilemnas. I am open minded about this. I just don't see how a habitat and dietary generalist would benefit within the confines of a colonial situation. Thanks once again! Phil

Every one of the snakes we take to keep is dead to nature and the population it came from. None of us can provide the same. Between all of us who keep snakes, we can and do offer very different set-ups between our cages. None equal nature. Every cage set-up, even sterile sweater boxes, allows a set of opportunities that limit a snakes choices to behave in certain ways. We all keep them for a variety of reasons.

As my son brought up the other day on one of these threads, it is similar prison limiting our ability to behave in certain ways. In my set-ups I aim for minumum security with extra priveleges!! Cheers, Hugh

yea, minimum security with conjugal visits...

you rattlesnake pimp...

np

I was being sarcastic with a reference to allowing choices... Minimum security prisons allow prisoners more options versus more stringent maximum security houses.

My point was, allow as many different conditions and options as you can and let your snakes choose their way. Fir instance, I have extremely hot hot spots. They are varied from lights to heat plates etc, with open basking areas, covered surface basking, to layered underground basking. There are similar cool choices. Every option you force on a captive snake takes away that snakes choice to do it's own thing, whatever that may be....

I don't attempt to make my cages "look" natural or keep them that clean for that matter. It's all about environmental options for them to choose what, when, where they go.

np

Yup ,I know we keep them for a variety of reasons and in different ways. Not trying to condemn anyone for the way they choose to keep their animals. I struggle with the somewhat natural setup and the sterile setup. There are times I admit that I personally REALLY enjoy a spotless roomy cage w/ newspaper over a cluttered pseudo "natural" setup that gets spot cleaned. I wonder if I am kidding myself sometimes with the natural setup, sometimes the animals seem to revert to a more nervous "I am free leave me alone!" attitude where on the other hand the snake s in the roomy sterile cages sometimes seem like very relaxed compliant captives who's basic needs are met and are thriving fine. But are they bored to tears? Or is it better to spend your life in a "semi- natural" cage always stressed when people walk by? I don't know just pondering.

I prefer the semi natural setup with cypress mulch as a floor cover. I add in some differant sized hides and after a week of the snake getting used to its cage I add in leaf litter from outside and watch them explore the whole cage all over again. I am more interested in how a snake inspects it surrondings than watching it feed. Oh yeah and if possible I add in climbing branches for every snake. Every snake in a cage will use climbing branches. My Scarlet kings used to bask all the time at the top of their branch. That got me looking higher up for them in the wild. I started finding them in the tops of palms. Here is a bad pic of what I am saying but you get the idea. Its a 4x2x2 setup for nesting.
Later Jason

As you know I've been experimenting with different setups.

One thing I've noticed.. the interesting behaviors of species emerge when one provides something that resembles preferred habitat for that species, even if it is man-made and not nearly as extensive as what would be in nature.

Example 1: Cal king
These aren't rock dwelling species. A pile of rocks in a Cal king cage doesn't elicit any interesting behaviors really. But, provide a loose, deep substrate with some sort of cover on top (wood, newspaper, etc) and heat them from above, and the snakes will thermoregulate by going deeper (to cool down) or to the surface just under the cover to warm up. They will amaze you on how they carry out thermoregulation without you seeing them much at all, even in a small cage.

Example 2: Mtn king
Provide rock (real or fake) slabs in piles (heated from above) and watch these guys stay in and among the rocks much of the time. Not nature, but still a hint of what they do in the wild.

Example 3: Rosy boa
I provided a deep substrate and a fake rock hide (very tight) heated from above. The rosy will push a few tight coils at the mouth of the hide to bask, while her head is either in the hide or just visible on top of a coil or under a coil or coming up from the substrate elsewhere. Point is, she acts like you sometimes see them around rocks: head not sticking out and vulnerable. Try to see that in a sweaterbox. When blue, she will bask early on in the cycle then disappear under the substrate until she sheds.

Honestly, I think if the snake's needs are met no matter what style of cage used, the snake will thrive. But, the keeper really misses the details of the species when a really sterile environment is used.

Mark

>>Yup ,I know we keep them for a variety of reasons and in different ways. Not trying to condemn anyone for the way they choose to keep their animals. I struggle with the somewhat natural setup and the sterile setup. There are times I admit that I personally REALLY enjoy a spotless roomy cage w/ newspaper over a cluttered pseudo "natural" setup that gets spot cleaned. I wonder if I am kidding myself sometimes with the natural setup, sometimes the animals seem to revert to a more nervous "I am free leave me alone!" attitude where on the other hand the snake s in the roomy sterile cages sometimes seem like very relaxed compliant captives who's basic needs are met and are thriving fine. But are they bored to tears? Or is it better to spend your life in a "semi- natural" cage always stressed when people walk by? I don't know just pondering.
-----
Mark G

Animals:
A few Rosy boas, mountain kings, Cal kings and Children's pythons.

Caging:
Visionariums, Herpcages.com, Precision, 5 gal tanks for babies.

Bob, great question! I will have to admit there is that part of me that sees animals how they are in the field and the richness of the habitat and wonder what types of psychological trauma a field collected specimen may endure once its entire world becomes condensed into the confines of a sweater box.

On the other hand I ask myself if I may be applying human like thoughts to what may be going on with the cognizent process of a snake. Either way we may never know the extent a sterile environment has on the psyche of a snake. It could be reasoned that some snakes (kings for example) spend a good deal of time secreted away in some unexposed spot. The question is how important is it to provide external stimuli? My guess is it may not be as important as some may think. King snakes crawl from these secluded spots they spend most of their time in to perforn various life functions. They hunt, breed, defecate, thermo-regulate etc.. In many cases these snakes do not need to leave their refugia to accomplish these tasks and remain fairly sedentary. For example, they may fulfill goals such as thermo-regulation and finding prey items within a rather small area and while very much out of sight under artificial or natural cover. I'm sure this is not always the case but it does happen.

I have no problem at all with housing such as sterilite boxes. I think it is important to provide options however. With this I mean providing a thermal gradient and a variety of hides and generous crawl space. I think it is less important to have so called naturalistic set ups. Many zoo's strive for this type of set up for aesthetic appeal but in many cases they are suboptimum in reality. The important issue is for the set up to be functional more so than look functional. Phil

Thanks Phil, I can appreciate your view.

While I do enjoy looking at the naturalistic environments you can only spot clean so much before complete removal of substrate and I've read that natural sunlight has beneficial UV sterilizingproperties and rain washes a way some crud etc.. which isn't happening in a terr. Also, I would think an animal can defecate further away from it haunts.

I like both syles of keeping. Just wrestling with the pro and cons.

On a side note. Do you think that there is any chance that captive hatchlings dump in their water bowls in an attempt to hide the fecal matter from leading a predator to their hide outs? Or is it just because they are soaking and defecating happens as a result?