Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Of course Caracal, what do you think I should do? Change my direction because you ask a question.
Please understand, My theories and my facts, are mine based on what I have done and observed and read. Yours are yours. I would not think anything said on the internet should change that. Not from me or Gregg or you.
1. I form hypothesis and test them. This nesting thing is based on need, which I mentioned, many folks have problems with their hogs becoming egg bound. NOT YOU, OTHERS.
2. I have lots of experience with snakes, torts, lizards, decreasing and eliminating egg binding, by the use of proper nesting. The results also increase the health and strength of the females, post deposition.
3. I have seen hog nests in nature. I know the composition and its the polar opposite of whats commonly used here.

So any halfway scientific person, would have probable cause to test different materials and actually see what does what.
1. sphagnum moss. Foreign to hognose habitat, very acidic, but is lite and holds water.
2. coco puff and sand mix, neutral and means most normal criteria for nesting captive snakes.
3. the most interesting is, taking material from exactly where my genetic animals were collected and nests were found.
Test all three, quantify(which means do it many times) and compare. Sir, that is what I am DOING.
You can also participate and test such things as store bought sand, or sand from southern hog or eastern hog habitats. Or not do anything and sit and watch, it would be nice if you participated. That's your choice. There is nothing that you say that will effect what I am doing, unless you participate. What you think is up to you, what you do is up to you. That all this has to be explained to you, is all about you.

Such evidence as the material in this picture, an in situ female hog. Supports cause to test that material. pt1

Such pictures as this, indicate to me, this material is what they use.


It does not take a genius to understand, this is not sphagnum moss. This is EXACTLY where my hogs are from, so my testing is in context to what is natural to them.
What westerns do or use is most likely closely related, but another story. I will test this with westerns in the future. Or you can beat me to the punch and do it now. You have the ability(at least I made the mistake of thinking you do)
At this time, I am testing what I know works well with other colubrid species, then I will compare these results to the materials above. I most likely will test sphagnum last, as so many of you use it and the results are available.
What you do here, attempting to discredit, dismiss theories, is STUPID. First off, you do not have to be smart to do this, ITS SIMPLE. You do not have to be an advanced field biologist to test this, ITS SIMPLE. You do not need to have some complicated theory, hypothesis to test this. ITS SIMPLE.

Please understand, this is a simple test, based on real and basic evidence. The worse case result would be, my hogs lay eggs in sand, no differently then in sphagnum. I am willing to take that risk. Best case, I will be lucky enough to observe species specific behaviors based on hognose adaptions and behavior. Even luckier would be, it improves nesting and depositing of eggs, and lowers the chance of egg binding.

Edited on July 4, 2014 at 08:08:58 by admin.

So can any of you, particularly Caracal and Nasius offer any hard evidence, of western or Mexican hognose, IN SITU, nesting in sphagnum moss, crawling in sphagnum moss, or inhabiting sphagnum moss. Or lastly using sphagnum moss in nature. No theories please, pictures preferred, IN NATURE. thank you so much.

I hate telling you what to say or think, unlike you that is constantly telling me how to BE.
In your case, its different, I don't care how you write or what you are. Its more about how do we communicate on here.
Your problem is, you think its all about theory and hypothesis, and such. While yours are fine and mine are fine. Simply put, both of our theories and such are NOT IMPORTANT.
Whats important and how science/biology/this actually works is, to offer support of our theories. The things that allow us to have our theories. I offered what supports my approach, and it makes sense.
Also, your other failure is almost the same, you somehow think its all about thinking something. Why your theories are not important to me is, I am DOING something. Doing is completely different then thinking.
That I share what I hope to do with you guys is questionable. But I do. I am not afraid to fail. Which surely can happen. So far, so good. If you could just SHOW something to help me understand why you think like you do, that would be helpful.
As you can read above, my intentions are very simple, but it takes time. I hope so have some input this year, but next year the ball will really rolling. So please, while its nice that you have theories, I am interested in the FACTS that support your theories. As mentioned, everybody has theories, Some right, some not.

Not quite sure where to begin - you really do go on and I guess there's not much point to this discourse, except for entertainment value; you obviously have no interest in a normal dialogue.

I think your ideas are great - in other words, it would be wonderful to test different nesting materials to see their impact and influence on the egg laying process, specifically as relates to egg retention in females.

BTW: I, personally, barely ever use sphagnum - not quite sure why you keep going on about it.

I didn't present you with a theory.
I presented you with a question - a simple question that relates to the relevance of YOUR theory.
You fell apart and started ranting.
I NEVER told you what to do, EXCEPT to be politer so we all can enjoy the forum.

I will repeat what I said in an earlier post: I am receiving emails, constantly, from others saying that they don't contribute to the forum because you are hijacking every post and repeating your ideas ad nauseam.

You really have to learn better how to deal with people expressing ideas that differ from yours.
It will really help you improve your methods of animal husbandry.

Your partner did the sphagnum deal, you must of missed it. And that's all there is to do, do it, not babble on and on. I do love when you posted snake stuff.

You can have any idea you like. you should understand, that when you use them to question me or any body else posts, you better back them up with something of merit. Merit, of value, meaningful, in context. Not silly crap that has nothing to do with hognose. See you in a few days, heading out to party and herp.

Jonny writes...."I will repeat what I said in an earlier post: I am receiving emails, constantly, from others saying that they don't contribute to the forum because you are hijacking every post and repeating your ideas ad nauseam."

Dude, that is such BS and you know it. No one is emailing you constantly to confide in you or expressing their feelings about why they are not using the forum anymore. This forum and many others died due to facebook, no Frank Retes. It is really annoying when people say things like what you wrote to sound important.

Anyway, I am curious to see if anyone can come up with what Frank asked for. Frank posted photos of these snakes in their natural habitat. Photographic evidence of how these animals live, what they live on, and how they utilize it. For the record, I personally don't think anyone here is wrong for offering sphagnum as a lay substrate, however, from my personal experience, it is not the best we can offer. I do not see why anyone would limit the snakes options if it is just as easy to offer the options.

FRs pictures are limited to the minuscule area that he researches. And that area is nothing but a desert and sandy environment. I would generously say that he has only seen and studied about 1% of the entire range that westerns live and thrive in. This makes his data useless at this point except for those in his area. With a sample size that small its reckless to tout it as a universal fact from a few pictures.

Let's turn this around a bit. Have him prove that hogs never use sphagnum moss or anything else as a medium to live in other than sand. Show me pics of every single hog in nature on nothing but sand? All the way from FRs house to Canada.

See how dumb his challenge looks now Gregg?

He's so blinded by his ego that he is even arguing that proven science is wrong because he doesn't like the answer.

its your ego that causes you to be blind. books stated, books picture this same habitat type from all over their range. I have seen hogs in same habitat for all the way to Fla. A fella posted a hog pic from the barrier islands, it looked exactly like my sites. Joe folks who is also doing lots of work with hognose in the field, his pics, look identical to mine. Only they are 500 miles apart. Your task seems to keep everyone uneducated. No worries, I will keep posting REAL information, not whats in our tiny brain.

The natural environment for all of the North American hognose species in indeed sandy loamy soil types. Species like hognose are specialized and evolved. They are a product of their environment. Anything ever written on their natural environment is the same. They come from areas of the US, Canada, and Mexico that are dry and arid where the soil type is sandy and loamy. This is really not up for debate. It is safe to say that the habitat types are pretty much identical in any part of the US, Canada, and Mexico Heterodon nasicus are found.

I guess we can turn this around on Frank and ask him to prove that hogs do not use sphagnum moss in the wild. However, the places you find sphagnum mosses are not in hognose snake habitat. Sphagnum mosses grow peat bogs, conifer forests and moist tundra areas. None of these habitat types support any species of Heterodon. So turning this around will only cement what Frank is saying.

I do not see Franks challenge as dumb. However, I do not see what he is asking to be needed. One only needs to look at what is currently documented as Heterodon habitat.

I agree, Frank may have an ego, but so do we all. I have seen Frank say some things I do not agree with and some things seem to be out there. However, I have yet to see him argue any "proven science". What is "proven science" anyway?

NP.

Hi Gregg, Thanks and about egos, These arguments are not about my ego or yours. In fact very much the opposite.
I am confident in my obsevations. As a keeper, I am only different in that I am confident enough to test, unknown and known. And keep testing them.
I am not invested like you and others in that, I am not selling anything. I can come and play and see what works.
Also as I mentioned many times, I am working with kennerlyi, and they do appear to be MORE of a burrower then westerns. There is lots of differences not noted in the papers(azygous and loreals) if you look at the build of the kennerlyi head, its more of a solid scalation and wedge. Body shape is also different. Of course our environment is hotter and dryer then western hog range. So its logical.
As you know, nesting and varanids, changed the way they were kept. In the beginning, I had the same exact "discussions" with the monitor experts of the time. With hogs, its not nearly the same, snakes are much much more tolerant of "foreign" nesting. The times and info you gave were great. Also as you know, many here had nesting problems and related egg binding. Hopefully something tested will help those interested. Those breeding for numbers, can do whatever is best for them.

It's the truth.
I guess your being a compulsive liar, yourself, makes it difficult for you to believe others.

Now he's a lair, everyone is a lair but you two. The point is, put up real information and stop talking about people. The world is full of information on hognose, They occur from S.E. Az to the atlantic. Get your bungholes out and see for yourselves.
I asked for you guys to provide information, not call people names.
Calling Gregg a liar is stupid, all hes done is try to be nice to you. He has reason to be nice to you. I try to be nice to you and I do not have a reason. Anybody with a backbone will sooner or later loose patience with you guys and become rude. Why, because you have nothing to share about hognose and only attack people. You guys attack me because I cheat, I show proof of reason, not just say, I think this or that and you have no way to counter that except attack people.
THIS HOGNOSE FORUM IS FOR DISSCUSSION, which means, many points of view, of hognose and their husbandry. It does not state there is only one right way, and neither do I. I do not understand why you fear that I am discussion many methods and doing so publically. Do you actually fear I will come up with better methods? The truth is, I may or I may not. But you bungholes are too insecure to wait and see. Guess what, its going to be a long bloody battle for your guys, because I will keep on going.

Your every post just exposes more clearly who you are.

Frank,
Jonny insists that I am a "compulsive liar" because I said I wanted to buy some hogs from him but changed my mind and did not follow through with buying them. I guess changing your mind somehow makes you a liar. I have my reasons for not buying the snakes and see no reason at this point to explain to anyone why. It is my business why I did not want to buy snakes from Jonny. Apparently, he is still ass hurt over me not buying 3 snakes from him 2 years back for some strange reason. Get over it Jonny. Don't say you have already because you keep bringing it up. Call me a liar and bring it up again, and I will be sure to let everyone here know why I did not want to buy your snakes and I will make sure everyone I know knows why as well.

You're a classy guy !

In your previous post you called me a liar.
Based on what?
Nothing !!

SO THEN YOU START THREATENING ME !!

I could get into it, but it does not make any sense to type it out. You will just have some snappy answer and it will just go in circles.

Jonny,
Sorry for insinuating that you were a liar. You are right. Fighting amongst ourselves is not the way to go. We are good.

till next time

"coco puff and sand mix, neutral and means most normal criteria for nesting captive snakes."

Quartz is a very weak acid. SiO2 2 H2O = H4SiO4. (compare this to the reaction of CO2, also a weak acid : CO2 H2O = H2CO3).

Quartz has extremely low solubility at low (surface) temperatures so you will not see much production of the silicic acid. You could effectively consider it to be negligible for most purposes.

Although sandy soils are typically acidic, this is more a case of absence of base salts in the sands than actual acid production from quartz dissolution (there is no base to react with and neutralize the carbonic acid - H2CO3 - that is naturally present in rainwater, and the organic acids that come from decaying vegetation, so the soils tend toward acidic conditions). BTW ph depends on its proximity to water. The further away from water less alkaline it gets because water is known to be a base. And in the deserts of Texas, rain water let alone standing water is rare...

And Coco Puff has a pH of 5.0-6.8 which is neutral to slightly acidic.

Care to learn more FR or did I just lose you?

Not here, Check your maps and soil types. Reference west texas, southern Az. By the way, whats limestone?

It is next to impossible to answer because it depends on the solubility of the limestone into water. If you take pure CaCO3 and dissolve it in H2O with the solubility constant of 4.8 * 10-^9 , only 0.00015 mol/L will dissolve into the H2O.

If you take this poor mix of CaCO3 to water, you have a pKa of 9 and that equates to a pH = 5.

That means its acidic because in this case the CO3- ion mixes with the H2O to form carbonic acid, which is why the pH is acidic. But in some limestones you do get a basic condition where the acids of the ground elements are displaced by the Ca ion and you do get a basic soil from it. So it really depends on the additives.

Fact is that is very hard to determine pure limestone pH because of the many variables that can effecting it, both in the limestone itself and the liquids it comes in contact with.

How explaining how alkaline flats can be anything other then alkaline. That's is of interest to me. As is all the hard water we have, what is that calcium???
Again, your living in la la land, I am talking the substrate UNDER THE SNAKES. See you in a few days, heading out to party and herp.