Food for Thought

I watched on National Geographic HD last night an episode of Brady Barr's "Dangerous Encounters".

In this episode, he is in Indonesia searching for big retics. The locals informed him of a bat cave where large ones are said to chill out. He went in there a year ago, but a nine footer gave him a nasty bite on the leg. Good deep gashes.

So he's back, a little more prepared this time. Anyhow, he finds a large one wedged into a crevice where they can't reach it. So, he attaches some fishing line to it so that if it leaves the crevice, they can hopefully follow it.

They return to the cave the next day at sunrise and find that the snake has indeed left the crevice, and the fishing line is working perfectly so they start the trace.

I wish they would have said exactly how far from the cave the snake moved, but they followed it out of the cave, along a creek, over an embankment, along a rocky outcropping and found it coiled at the base of a large tree. By guessing I would say at least 25 yards, probably more. If this is the amount of movement for one evening/morning, is an enclosure 8 feet long by 30" wide really adequate for a snake 21 feet long? Is it even adequate for a snake 2 feet long?

They caught the snake (a nasty attitude, I must say), measured it at 21 feet and it was a real beauty. An excellent episode. Keeping it on the PVR for sure.

Chris

I think its safe to say that nobody, including yourself gives your snakes that kind of room to roam.

Did we not just have a 30 page discussion on enclosures sizes and how some feel tubs are inadequate? :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Jerhart

Did we not just have a 30 page discussion on enclosures sizes and how some feel tubs are inadequate? :rolleyes:

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Yeah, but that was like.....TWO days ago.

Things have changed man, things have changed.

I think my Burm is very happy in his 8x3x3 enclosure...perfect temps/humidity and a guaranteed meal isn't a bad gig...on top of that I see to it he gets plenty of exercise hanging out with dad roaming around the living room.

We obviously can't duplicate their natural setting but we can make them pretty comfortable in our own.

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Originally Posted by JimmyBalls

I think my Burm is very happy in his 8x3x3 enclosure...perfect temps/humidity and a guaranteed meal isn't a bad gig...on top of that I see to it he gets plenty of exercise hanging out with dad roaming around the living room.

We obviously can't duplicate their natural setting but we can make them pretty comfortable in our own.

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That's a big part of it for me... letting them out to explore and interact with us. I use an 8x4x2, and mine (burm) seems happy, but he sure is at the door to come out every time I open it...

Chris

When snakes get this big usually somewhere around 7-8ft only seems to be realistic and convinient for an enclosure. Unless you build your own, a enclosure that size and/or bigger would be expeeeensive. Im sure all big python owners wish they could have some huge zoo-like enclosure but it doesnt seem realistic.

When you have snakes this size it seems manditory to take them out more to get some excersize. When you own smaller snakes its easier to spoil them with space but with bigger snakes things seem to change. So taking them out more often is the best you can do.

I saw a clip on youtube of this scientist using transmiters to track the wild burms in south florida and if I remember right the snakes were moving vast distances