Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Took this pic on May 26, 2013. On the way home, I lost the camera (small cheapy). Just found it this morning under my car seat.

I climbed around this area in the late morning. Too warm and dry for me to expect to see anything, but it was fun anyway to simply survey the rocks and crevices and get lots of scrapes on my legs.

cool, I just came over to this forum to see if anyone had any rosy habitat pics from So Cal to share and see this!
Do you have any other habitat shots from this area?
I was just given a rosy (supposedly) from this area and will be building a naturalistic exhibit for him in the next few months, so any habitat shots anyone has would be appreciated.
I have lots of habitat shots from where I've found rosys in the Mojave but none from So. Cal.
Also what are the current rosy books you guys recommend here? I have all the old T.F.H style stuff (Walls) but obviously it's dated.
Thanks!

Low desert going up into the foothills.

Cool

I urge you to experiment, as you may just find out something. Here is what I found out.

I tried a few different caging strategies out. Im my experience, keep cages somewhat small. A 20 gal long is sufficient for an adult. My rosies fed and bred well when the cage was nothing more than a glass tank with screen top (or plastic cage with ample ventilation), some substrate (aspen or sani chips), a heat pad or ceramic emitter, and some newspaper or packing paper thrown over the top of the substrate. That's it. I tried rock hides, large cages, decorations, racks, etc, and came back to the very simple setups with more ventilation than for a typical kingsnake or cornsnake setup.

Thanks for the responses.
The habitat shots are great thank you.
I've been keeping and breeding reptiles for over 20 years, mostly varanids and I own a naturalistic fabrication company that designs and builds zoo exhibits all over the country.
I respectfully disagree with your husbandry protocols and my experiences have been quite the opposite of yours.
I'll be providing a fairly small exhibit size equivalent to a 4x2x4tall. Deep natural substrate (dirt sand mix) and will provide a large thermal and humidity gradient.I'll probably get a female to go with the male and let them go year round. Hopefully they will burrow and I'll only see them when they cruise.
Thanks again.

That is awesome. I would love to see the cage.

I always found rosies to be a bit different in needs in comparison to kingsnakes, cornsnakes, pituophis. The thing about rosies is that you can see success or failure pretty quickly. The ability to produce healthy, fat young, or not, is a good indicator. Unhealthy or unhappy rosies typically do not produce well at all.

First off all good job on giving sound advice here mark.

Actually we used to keep rosys in smaller tank than 20gallon with screen lids.But 20's won't hurt for larger female. a lot of us had the best success with the screen top and basic glass gallon type aquaria with watr offere sparingly with the exception of gravid female and neonates.

. All the oldies kept them this in tanks w/ screen lids. I kept kept a collection of over a hundred of rosys for over 30 years like this. Then so did Gary Keelser and today Jerry Hartly still does. Ventilation is important and rosys just don't do well with high humidity and rack systems. They also do better with bottom heat instead of heated rooms or back heat.

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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

Thank you. Nice pics - who is that?