Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The following statement has been presented several times:

"....aborting or an abortion, where the eggs are uncovered and scattered around the box."

For the last 2 years I used large deep nest boxes.
The year prior, I just used small nest boxes in their regular plastic tubs.
When I just used small nest boxes (2 inches of substrate appx.), some of the females laid in the nest boxes, some outside the nest boxes.
None, I repeat NONE of the females "scattered" their eggs around the box.
I am not addressing any other aspect of this subject in this post, not even the other term used, "abortion".
I am just stating a FACT.
I won't say I am speaking for other breeders, although several other breeders have told me EXACTLY the same thing.
My females did EXACTLY the same thing on the aspen that they did in the deep nest boxes.
They stayed in one place - DIDN'T MOVE - except for the movements necessary to expel their eggs. This took several hours in BOTH setups. There was no observational difference.
Their eggs were all laid together.
There was no "scattering" - not with one single female !!!

This crap throwing your doing is silly, heck more then silly. You keep quoting aborting, abortion. Which is weird, because as I also said, if you do not have problems its not for you. WHICH means, its FOR those with females scattering eggs around the cage and becoming egg bound.
As an example, I post on a Mexican hognose page, one other poster, is a long long time friend. He just posted a clutch of 12 beautiful eggs, and one dud. Nested beautifully in sphagnum moss and what looks like a shallow plastic tub. The nesting was great. So I said, congratulation.
Apparently your brain is too small, yes offending you and some others here is fun, to understand. Help is for those that need it. You could have also quoted, If they nested well in a tea cup, with pee water, I could careless, if there was no problems.
Now, please bend over and run into the most solid wall you can find, then think to yourself, I have no problems, I have no problems, I have no problems, Therefore, I do not have to whine. This is not for me, its not for me. No whining Like a little tiny baby child, baby child, baby child. No whining. I am Vger, I am Vger, must destroy, must destroy, not perfect, must destroy.

If deep nesting is not of help to your animals, then GO BACK TO SHALLOW NESTING. Please do, it has to be easier on your. That soft stuff is heavy you know, you could pop a gizzard. Go back is its not better!

At this point, I think it is more than apparent to any balanced and reasonable person is that this forum has been hijacked by FR.
I bid you all farewell and happy helping

I will miss you, I do thank you for the few posts where you showed pics and animals. That was great. I hope you come back and share some more hognose stuff. I don't mind putting up with your other stuff as long as it brings out your good stuff.

Here's a thought about deep nesting. It's highly probable that the only reason the eggs are all nice and piled up is because they have significant less space in which to lay them. They borrow down and make a small nesting chamber that is nice and cozy. So the eggs can't "roll" around or get aborted or whatever lame phrase FR wants to use. Now with shallow nesting like in the actual tubs that FR uses (not the ones he just pushes on everyone) they have more room to spread out and the eggs have a higher chance of simply rolling off the pile. I can see how this can give the false impression that they either happier in the deep or unhappy in the shallow.

Actually, the "deep" or full cage nesting with a good substrate allows the female to properly nest her eggs. One behavior I have observed that most people, including Jonny, have not seen is actual nesting behavior. The female will actually neatly gather the eggs into a tight bundle and then use her rostral scale to move dirt and pack it around the eggs. The reason people do not witness these actual nesting behaviors is because many have this irrational fear that the female will eat her eggs so they have their fingers up the females cloaca as the eggs drop out. Not literally but they will not leave that female in with the eggs for a time long enough for the female to nest them. I leave my females to do their thing and do not dig up eggs until the female leaves the nest on her own. This is not a behavior you will see in a little nest box with sphagnum moss. Nasicus, these are observations from myself and others who have used both methods. part 1

Frank is not "pushing" anything on you or anyone. He is making you rethink what you are doing and giving you reasons why you should rethink them. I have done the same. Maybe in a better tone though. LOL. The truth is, I can care less if you do not want to use this method even after seeing what differences it can make. You are not affecting me in any way, however, it can eventually affect your snakes. And that should matter to you. If you are happy offering minimal husbandry to sustain your snakes and go by care sheet standards, that fine, but its on you. To me, it is a no brainer to try other methods to see what is working best for may animals. And to see eggs being "accidently" knocked around is not a false impression of poor nesting. It is a clear sign of poor nesting. If the eggs were nested properly, the "accidental" scattering would not happen at all.

Thanks Gregg. As mentioned one million times, you can do what you want. Why you and others sit around and say, maybe this or maybe that, or maybe the other. Is weird. The method I showed, is extreme and covers many species and many conditions. That is, it allows the keeper to make mistakes.
The smaller you make it, the conditions change faster, and the more work there is on you. The larger you make it, the mass holds the humidity far longer and you can even leave the eggs in there to hatch if you like or use it for other females. This was all explained a million times. The design came about because I was going to be in the field for weeks and needed something to allow the females to nest and stay there for weeks. And when I returned, all was fine, eggs and snakes.
Greggs design is smaller and will not allow weeks or months to go by. Smaller then that allows less room for error. Smaller amounts of substrate, dry out quicker. its pretty much that simple. In that, like Caracal showed, even with deep nesting, they may still choose to nest at the bottom. Why, because they wanted too.
If shallow nesting and deep nesting worked the same(and they don't) and the snakes CHOOSE to nest deep and they do, why do you keepers take away what the snakes wants????? To me, this is the issue. Not works or not, or egg binding, etc. Its a human natural behavior. ITs a control issue. People fight like cats and dogsover this subject, is not because its whats best for the snakes, they fight because its a control issue and you do not want to give control to the snake. Which is also why they don't test it.
What is odd is, to win this argument is easy, you can do what you want, BECAUSE YOU WANT TO. There is no argument for that. But you guys do not do that either. pt1

Control is what humans do, just look around, we do it with everything all the time, for all reasons. We even kill women and children over control issues.
We control, its not about right or wrong. ITs what humans do. To dominate. again that's what we do.
With a tiny harmless snake, its about to what point? At the point of a shoe box with everything natural to it gone, not the same food, or materials, or sand, or anything from what it knows.
We now have total control. Its also under your control to give something back. To allow animals some freedom of choice. We even give prisoners some basic choices. Murders, rapist, get some freedoms in jail. And we TURN them loose for good behavior. As Eric Burton sang(the animals) "This really blows my mind" To me, this is the point, we EASILY can control a little snake. The question is why do we want to take all that's normal/natural to it, away??????? Any one care to respond to this?

With all your BS FR you have FAiLED to explain why. You have offered nothing more than theories which is exactly what I did. The true answer is something that you and anyone else will never know because we don't speak to hognose snakes.

Now if you have an actual piece of proof as to why then I will listen. But until then you sir, are a proven hypocrite that got caught and everything you say is suspect and without merit.

Gregg, I use deep substrait all of the time. Niot just for nesting unlike FR. I'm curious how you can see these behivours when they are tunneled down in a nesting den. I get to see a lot of different things especially the hunting behaviour with me set ups. They tunnel and have different areas to lay in on all 4 sides. Not just the back that is blacked out.

If somebody can lie and say you've spoken to them several times on the phone when you've actually only spoken to them once -
the same person who promised, repeatedly, over the course of a couple of months that they were buying something and never called to say they'd changed their mind - I wouldn't treat what they say too seriously.
He's just making stuff up that suits his agenda.

Hey Nasicus,
My set up allows for viewing. It is a rack system with clear tubs. I also use clear plastic to cover the substrate. I can also lift the hard plastic cover to peek in and see what is going on. I can easily observe the nesting behavior.

Jonny,
What is my supposed agenda? I never lied about anything and do not appreciate being called one. We have indeed spoken on the phone a few times. The content of the conversation or duration in between the conversations does not matter. We have have a few phone conversations and that is all I said. Do you deny that?

Do you use the deep style of substrate all of the time like I do or just for nesting?

And btw since I've been messing with hogs and long before I bothered to read anything on here, I've been using a deep substrate for all of mine. And yes it was long before I ever heard of FR and dealt with his childish ways.

I got my idea after dealing with sand boss that are borrowers as well. It only makes sense to try and mimic Mother Nature as best we can. So logically a borrowing snake like hogs would love deep substrate to play and live in. Not hard to understand or figure out.

You should see them get excited and travel up from the deep when its feeding time. Its fun to watch.

Hello Nasicus,
I use normal type rack systems for my hogs. I only worry about substrate is when it comes to nesting. But to be quite honest, my nesting is not all that deep. Between 5 and 6 inches. I would call my nesting technique "full cage nesting". From what I can tell, it is deep enough and all I am able to offer at this time. I am more worried about the humidity, temperature, and security options than I am with the actual depth of the substrate.

While my technique has worked well, in some cases, wonders, for me and others who adopted it, there is always room for improvement.

If that works for you, that's all you can ask for. Depth they choose is based on many conditions. I found some nests in the field that were 8 inches or so deep.
Previously, you mentioned other factors that are also important.
Other factors are routine, the more they use the same nest, the faster they take to it. And there are more factors then just depth.
My boxes are used for many kinds of snakes and often much larger ones. I am not limited by size or number of females.
The reality is, any time between 1 day and 6 days after the shed is great, with little negative effect on the female. From 7 days to 9, is marginal, after nine, you start to see problems. And some can be serious.
In the future, next year, I plan on testing substrate, from exactly where these animals naturally nest, vs. Coco/sand mixes and other purchased substrates. That will be fun. Best wishes

I'm using sphagnum and have never had an issue with the humidity once its moistened but it's very humid here anyway. Mine is around 10-12 inches deep and they seem to stay about 2 inches up from the bottom with their main chamber. But they will tunnel all over it. One thing that I've noticed is that they only create 2 points of entry to the surface. Like a front door and back door so to speak. Mine live in deep all year round not just for nesting. They tunnel around all four sides and have chambers right up against the sides. Makes it fun to watch them. Sometimes they are visible sometimes they are net.

As you know they do produce their own scents (pheromones). I'm wondering if that plays a roll in how "comfortable" they are when it comes to egg depositing. How many days or weeks do you put them in your deep nesting box before the due date? I wonder if that time frame to acclimate to the new set up plays a roll in how soon they lay and how well they mound up the eggs.

Finally something real to talk about. Your absolutely right, they do scent mark what they use and claim it as theres. Using the same nest box with the same material does indeed allow them to "take" to the nest quicker.
Also, Sphagnum moss is a material known to us. And easily acquired, we can buy it. But its not instinctually known to hognose. They do not choose to use moist plant material in nature. They normally pick, sandy areas of the same temps an moisture levels you are providing with your sphagnum moss. Try the same thing your doing now, with a sandy mix and see how that works.

FR not all hognose use a sandy mix. Their ranges are vastly different from one side of the country to the other. So unless you have observed every single range in every single region and actually practiced what you preach, I will pass on your advise. BTW you are not Gregg of which whom this conversation is with. Stop hijacking everything with your hypocritical preachiness.

You should try using deep all year instead forcing them into your tiny shallow Tupperware and torturing them to elicit behaviors that you want to see when you want to see it.

All I asked is for you to try it. What your doing now is good, all that can happen is? well its not going to hurt, as long as you do exactly what you did with sphagnum. What could happen is, good. for both you and the snake.
In the coming seasons, I will be testing this and posting, if others tested it too, It could only help our understanding of hogs and nesting.

You talk about childish ways, yet that's all you do, is act like a child.
I try to improve conditions for the snakes, You only attack me. Your worthless and indeed child like.
Whether I am right wrong or inbetween, I am trying to help, not just the snakes, but the keepers keeping them.
This thing gets childish when Bean heads like you, make it all about people. Like bunch of snotty nose rug rats fighting over a toy. Sir, if you are a sir, GROW THE HECK UP.
If you think I am wrong, debate the subject.
Heres the deal pyscho kid, you feel I am better then you, so on a board where you are not real and never have to face a real person, you can attack(like a child) all to bring others down and make you feel BIGGER. The problem is, your still not bigger, and I never said I was better then anyone. I just talk about snakes. Lastly, I never do not keep them in small boxes, I did say, its a poor way to learn about animals. No one will deny that.
Again, I say, ask questions, but as a stupid child, you only attack. I could explain why they are in there, but that would do no good, as you only care about pertaining you are more then you are.