Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Not arguing Matt, just discussing.

Example 1 : Perfectly tame gentle Desert Cal. king. Raised in a various sized rubbermaids (good eater)

Same snake moved to a very large "natural" enclosure. Many hides various humidity levels throughout, full spectrum lighting. Now a whacked out snake that acts as though just caught (not the same low key animal) completely stressed when performing cage maintnance and handling. Strikes/rattles/ when you even go near cage. Never calms down again even though patietly handled on MANY occassions (musks). Not a temporary thing.

Example 2 : My FAVORITE snakes Gaigeae. Took one of BM colony animals that was getting some good growth, around 4' (raised since hatchling) Good eater, calm mellow bugger.kept in a rubbermaid w/good humidity, no problems.

Same snake moved to a large enclosure w/paper substrate several hides, (shoeboxes because they appear to like to go into "small" containers over large.) moist/warm, dry/warm, dry/cool, dry/warm. cage humidity around 60 -70. Now I have a beuatiful animal that spends almost ALL of it's time unless pooping and looking for food (Guess he moves at nite)curled in a small shoebox.

In the first example contrary to some of the previous postings he did not take handling the same way a "wild" snake would. It seems maybe to me that he had gotten used to being handled without feeling like he was about to be eaten. Now with a "natural" cage his stress levels appeared to be off the charts!

In the second example I find myself wondering if I just kept the BM in a large sweater box with good humidity if it would be better for him to roam a large box rather than a shoebox 23 out of 24 hours a day. I tried it with another BM and she musked me! BMs do not musk! That had to be very stressful for her to do that!

I like natural and strile enclosures. Any thoughts?

Bob.

np

im not so sure you are looking for other opinions here or if i am getting the whole point of the post but ...

i personally have had animals in both types of setups. in my opinion as long as the animal is getting the proper conditions for a GOOD life the setup does not matter. i prefer naturalistic setups when possible because they are more interesting to observe.

reguarding your examples: i am a strong believer in science and i believe that your two examples dont really suggest that naturalistic setups would be more stressful. i would try moving the aniamls back into non-naturalistic setups. if the behavior reverts then there is at least some evidence that the setup could have been the cause.
as for the animal who spends all the time in the hide: in my experiences animals who hide all the time (day and night) tend to either not feel comfortable in their surroundings or are not in the proper conditions. you say you have various hides with various conditions, this is good, but can the animal get the proper conditions outside of the hides? in otehr words do you have a proper temp and/or humidity gradient? if so then maybe the problem is the animals personality more or less. if the cage is transparent then the animal may not feel safe outside of the hide, try covering three of the sides of the cage.

just some of my thoughts, not trying to degrade anyones husbandry habbits just trying to share infomation.

Just to add some fuel to the debate. How does one know what the herp wants for a "natural" environment? I have several ball pythons, 1 female loves to sit on the heat mat end of the cage, the other female, it "happy" anywhere. I never see much effort in where she wants to be.

I have 2 males. 1 is a lurp, took him in to promote breeding, eats once a month.

2nd male likes it cool, and when I open his tub he's flying out mouth open looking for food.

This generates the basis for my question. How does one know what a herp wants? We all have setup various environment setups. Or have we? Some snakes may like rocky areas, or soil, or wet or dry, the options are really endless.

I know from reading, MANY of you take great care of your herps. But we really guess at what they like. I use to raise Jackson chameleons, well tried, babies are tough.

My male would sit on his side in the soil, and his forearms on the edge of the tub for his pothos. The first time I saw him I thought he was sick, he just seem to like to go there mid day. I swear he wanted a coffee and newspaper.

OK, back to the issues,, we just make the best attempts to read our animals. I most say I'm a bit jealous of the efforts many go to.

1 know the basic habitat an animal needs, humidity and water needs maybe being #1 and #2. temperature a very close #3. Then it is up to us to read our animals and balance what they need to what they seem like. I wish I had you guys over my shoulder when I sell something and I try to explain herps tolerate handling, they do not enjoy it. They do not get picked up in the wild unless something bad is going to happen. And people just do not want to believe the level of stress herps must feel. Especially some species.
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Tom

www.herpzilla.com

The Cal. King never reverted after returning to a sterile setup. I've seen it before. some do go back to normal.

The animal that always stays in the moist hide is a milk, by nature shy. But while handled and interacted with,very calm and docile.Some Milk Subs I have kept are not so retiring.

The point of the various hides (warm/moist,cool/moist,warm/dry,cool.dry)is to provide the animal with it's choice of conditions which had been the focus of the previous thread. I believed a medium humidity level of 70 or so practical. to increase the base humidity takes the choices away. (everything is humid-cool end warm humid end,less choice. The cage is plastic only one side open and heat from below.

As we debate the Natural vs. Sterile. trying to point out theres maybe more and less to the whole thing.

I don't believe the changes we had been talking about and used in these examples had the effects we thought they had to.

Given these examples, I have to pause and consider that I might have healtheir captives that are compliant, calm, and seemingly contented by staying with simple caging. I think in some ways a large cage can "create " a very stressfull fight or flight reaction. Causing the animal to feel free and every time you do maintenanc it's the stress of being captured "again"

Sorry it was long,Thanks, Bob

I guess my point was also that if the Milk was going to spend all it's time "choosing" the moist hide despite choices, maybe in this case a large cage is a waste of time and a dispicable (read it like Daffy would say it!) humid, large simple plastic box that would allow the captive more room to move might be a realistic/practical improvement.

Bob

i guess it all just depends on what you enjoy. i personally have a four year old male bci. last year i had him in a six foot by two foot white melename cage with two card board box hides and a newspaper substrate, nothing fancy. this year i have him in a smaller four foot by two foot cage that i have aspen substrate and a false rock background/ledge. i downsized his cage because of space issues and i removed his hides because he is now seven feet (although i do keep half the cage covered). i see much more exploration and movement in the new cage. this is what makes me feel the animal is more "happy". personally i enjoy watching him move around the cage at night, something he only did to get from one end of the old cage to the other. i enjoy the new behaviors i see with him in the new cage. also i try to stimulate him every once in a while by throwing a shoe box or something in there different that he can explore. differnt things work for differnt people and im not trying to prove anyone wrong but this just works for me.

np

I was recently in Wilmington N.C. and checked out a freinds freinds very sharp serpentarium. They appeared to use no substrate in some of the cages, instead used rockwork of sorts and I guess it was hosed off into drains. Extremely clean and well done facility. Worth checking out if in the area.(mostly hots)

They also did a nice balance of having areas to make the animals feel they had cover but most were so relaxed they stayed out in the open. Saw two green Mambas mating from 6" away. If the typical herper had the resources, that would be the way to go. It was beautiful. first rate.

Bob.

thank you. i did it using the moethod everyone talks about and the real faux rock people hate .. foam and tile grout. that was my first attempt at a faux rock finish and i think i may try the wire lathe and cement way nex, just hoping its still light weight like the tile grout and foam. so fat after a year it has held up great.

i like the idea of having animals in a naturalistic environment. only for the reason that to me it just seems like it would be more interesting to crawl around rocks and other stuff then just a plain white cage. i like the idea of rock bottoms, except my snakes seem to like to move the bedding around and burrow in it so i wouldnt want to take that away from them. if i wasnt all the way in pa that place sounds like a really interesting place to go.

Bob, I have tried almost everything with caging mtn kings, rosy boas and some other getula kings. Although I still have many questions myself, I've reached the following conclusions based on what I tried and saw:

1. Humidity of the substrate or hide, but not necessarily the air in the open cage, is important for kings and milks, since they would normally spend lots of time in and under the ground. If they don't have a substrate to burrow into, or a moist hide, then the air humidity is important.

2. Temps are important of course. Usual stuff: provide a temp gradient. Snakes will use the cool end sometimes, even if they spend most of their time near the warm end.

3. Cage size is less of an issue for the above snakes if temps and humidity conditions are right for the animal. I have found that most of the time, a snake kept in a large cage will spend most of the time in a preferred area in the cage. And if it can't find a preferred area, you see alot of nervous activity. This is an opinion of mine, not fact.

What I still don't know is what they want at different times of the year.

My Cal kings thrived with a deep soil/coconut husk substrate, part of which kept moist, part dry. When heated from above, they would come up to just below the surface to thermoregulate. More of a vertical approach to living than horizontal. The cage length could be reduced. Interesting project.

The mtn kings also made use of a moist substrate area. No fungus, no mtn king disease.

Same snakes seemed to thrive in a plastic box with newspaper as long as I provided a humid hide and a temp gradient.

I still have no clue what the best conditions are for the best reproductive success. I don't know if anyone does. That is why a large cage with lots of choices may help in finding what snakes want during different times of the year.

Keep searching for answers.

Hey Mark,

Always good to hear your thoughts. On the kingsnake Forum, Fr or someone over there was just saying the same thing about being just under the surface, something about going out to the feilds as they were just plowed in early spring and finding many body parts of kings and Gophers that had been just under the surface warming up.

Bob

I have been using damp sphangnum moss from a plant place. I think I remember reading that there is something in the moss that retards fungus and bacteria?

One of the Indigo guys uses cypress mulch and told me it's sturdier and that he can use a steamer to disinfect it.

With all this talk of multiple hides, I've even been thinking of designing a hide that has a pan of water and a grate above it so the snake gets the benefit of the humidity without touching the water to reduce risk of blister disease from over doing it.

My younger black Milks have been doing fine in sweater boxes/shoe boxes with newspaper for a long while and only roam when looking for food. Humidity is fairly high regularly and I am tempted to leave well enough alone. Eventually I picture incorporating all the adults into large Vision #400s or #600s with multiple hides.

Bob

Interesting stories. Isn't that a principle called "false freedom" where taking an animal outside or otherwise providing a suggestion of being released causes a reversion to wild behavior?

Yeah I vauguely remember reading that somewhere (a book written by a vet?) In a case like that I ask myself if the animal isn't better off calm, eating,pooping and interacting/excercising for body tone by being handled frequently for cleaning and admiration purposes.

We don't all buy farms to let our dogs roam free on acres to replicate their wild state.

We don't build barn sized/landscaped aviaries for our canaries.

We don't give gold fish room sized aquariums inside. (Koi ponds are nice though outside).

We don't let horses loose on miles and miles of land we keep them in barns and turn them out.

Elaborate cages are nice,but can we feel good about ourselves and the way we keep herps in a similar fashion. If I ask myself what would they want I would say to be free and NO cage is good enough if I'm honest. Maybe they don't care as long as they are kept in reasonable sized cages, protected from predators and fed well. Selfish but honest is that it is about me. Some humans don't have it that well. Just some thoughts.
Bob.

A refreshing breath of honesty is preferable to self-righteousness. Honest inquiry is good.
What I find interesting about snakes is how they seem to have evolved towards simplicity. Like me.
Thanks,
Jim

Thanks Jim,

I think that acronym K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) carries a lot of wisdom. I appreciate yours and Marks comments about wrestling with the same ideas. Helps me not feel like such a minority loser.

Lets ALL have a nice weekend and enjoy this silly hobby.

Bob.

>I like natural and strile enclosures. Any thoughts?<
When you think about it, this is almost like classic Darwinism (which is real science according to some). The method you describe evolved by being successful.
Jim

I think each type of caging has it's purposes. I don't necessarily think everyone needs to convert over to all naturalistic caging either. It's all a manner of how the animals do within different caging. An example of my own is that I housed two female Ball Pythons in a heavily landscaped Reptarium 260 gallon enclosure [72Lx29Dx29H] - one would eat fairly regularly, the other would eat only sporadically. Once I separated the two snakes and placed them in much smaller enclosures both became much more consistent eaters. In this case I can't truly say that the smaller, more spartan caging was necessarily the impetus needed to get the finicky one eating more regularly. Could it be because there was a stress involved in housing them together? Could there be something about the confines of the smaller cage that better mimics a favorite Ball Python hangout in the wild - the termite mound? I simply don't know. Another example would be my approximately 3 year old Florida Kingsnake. She's housed in a very minimalist but still naturalistic enclosure. She is one of the most aggressive snakes that I have. Will lunge, hiss, and if picked up musk. Oh yeah, she tail rattles all the time. This behavior doesn't bother me though because she still eats just fine, so I just chalk it up to the kind of behavior I'd expect from a wild specimen. I couldn't begin to guess as to why the behavior of your snakes has changed due to caging and why when reverted to the original style of caging the behavior has not changed back. As I mentioned at the beginning - I think there's a place for both caging styles where appropriate. However, I also think that as we examine more these ideas of microclimates within the cage and developing more realistic habitats we can gain a better understanding of the animal's behavior in captivity. Also, as we design more natural habitats we need to be more prepared for the possibility that some snakes may 'go native,' and will no longer be the easily-handled snakes we remember.
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Matt Campbell
25 years herp keeping experience
Full-time zookeeper
Personal collection - 21 snakes (9 genera), 20 lizards (4 genera), 6 chelonians (2 genera)