A Concern about hots

After going to the Student Union, Shannon and I decided to stop by our college's Life Sciences building, where they keep several herps and invertebrates. On the first floor they have 8 cages on display, 6 of them containing different species of hots native to our area, on one of a Texas Rat snake. These included Western Diamondbacks, Timber Rattlers, pigmy rattlesnakes, two Copperheads, and a venemous snake native to Japan that's a relative to the Cotton Mouth here in the US. Every now and then we always try to stop by the classroom that's next to it in hopes of finding someone who takes care of them so we could talk about their behavior patterns, and such. Well, we went there today, and I personally was disgusted by the shape that their environments were in. Each enclosure had urates/feces and old shed laying around the cages, and there was no water at all in any of the vivs. There were water bowls, but they were bone dry. Needless to say, we wrote a little note. I really didn't go into the shape that the enclosures were in when i wrote the note, because I really didn't want to get a negative response, or no response at all. I also mentioned that I had owned several reptiles before hand, so it wouldn't come off as the whole steriotype of "Oh, they're just college kids looking for some sick amusement". But honestly...no water? I can somewhat understand not wanting to clean out a hot's cage, but there are safe ways to do so with under-handled animals. But imo NO water is absolutely unacceptable. I'm going back tomorrow to take some pics to post up here, because they really are amazing and beautiful animals, but their enclosures just tick me off!

i read the title and i thought to my self. wow you only have one concern about hots. hahaha.

I wonder if the guy who has the training to handle the hots was on holiday or something and the rest chickened out?


But yeah you would certainly expect better from an educational establishment - were they kept in good conditions when you viewed them before?

dr del

If the guy is on holiday, he has been so all year. =/ I showed my mom the snakes when she came up a few months ago and the cages looked exactly the same. There has always been feces and pieces of shed all over the cage. It makes me sad to see them like that, because even though they are dangerous, they are still beautiful creatures and need to be taken care of. One of the water bowls had sand in it, and another has old shed stuck to it that has been stuck on there all year :/ Even the rat snake's cage was filthy. There is no reason for that...even if the little guy is nippy, how much harm can he really do?? I don't think the temps and humidity are right either...all the sheds that are laying around are in little pieces. *sigh* There isn't much school left in this year (we are done on Friday) but hopefully we can help get those snakes in the right shape when we come back next year...

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Originally Posted by MATT FISHER REPTILES

i read the title and i thought to my self. wow you only have one concern about hots. hahaha.

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LMAO!!! I pondered the same thing waiting for it to load

sorry if this is a dumb question but what does "hots" refer to

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Originally Posted by Squishy Burrito

sorry if this is a dumb question but what does "hots" refer to

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Venomous snakes....and usually means "dangerously venomous" as opposed to snakes who have some mild venom but aren't considered dangerous to humans. (ie: hognose snakes)