Share your Advanced Practices!

I do not have hides in the cages unless the snake will simply not eat without it.

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Originally Posted by 3skulls

I don't think anything I do is advanced. Sometimes I will feed on the first night I receive an animal and I handle them in that first week.


I do have a question. For those of you that vend shows. Do you place everything you don't sell into QT after?

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x2 i always offer whenever feed night is. If they happen to arrive on the day i feed then ill offer it to them. Never had a refusal.

I'd be curious about that too. ;)

So I filled this out with my own practices at home. All the staff among the stores have their own techniques and preferences, too, so there's almost 30 different perspectives on husbandry for any one animal!

Some topics for discussion:

Quarantine
Personal collection - depends. If I've been watching the animal at work for a month or more, then no, I'll give it a couple weeks to settle in and start feeding and after that it just gets assimilated. If it's brand new, then 30 days being cared for separately to monitor it. Since I live in a one bedroom apartment, the best I can do is keep the new animals in my bedroom while the rest stay in the living room.

Hot Spot and Ambient Temperatures
My own collection I keep hot. Basking spot/warm spot 95, with gravid females sometimes getting hot spots up to 100. Ambients vary from 70 to 80 depending on time of year. I cycle my balls in summer, and dial down the hot spot to 85 with the tanks having an ambient of 80 (helps with my electricity bill during high demand months, too). Winter I had the most success the year I kept them in the garage and had ambients of 65 and the warm side of the rack with basking areas of 95 and a heat light pointed at the warm side to increase air temps. The last couple years they've been warmer and not nearly as fecund as they were the "cold year". The ball pythons, anyway.
My amazons I keep cooler - no night time heat, so they drop to 70 at night, and daytime basking temps only get to 85/86.
The lizards I keep hot - blue tongues with basking areas of 110+, ambients in the 80s, Frilleds with basking areas of 100+, ambients in the mid 70s.
I raise crested geckos under a mercury vapor bulb. :) Pretty sure that's my most controversial set up but it's also one of my most successful.

Hides or No Hides
Depends. No hides for snakes in racks, I have a hide for the retics because they're in a relatively large tub, hide for my house snake 'cause she likes it... ATBs don't need actual hides, as they perch, and the lizards all have basking areas. Cresteds get cork tubes.

Planted/Living Vivariums and Displays
I love these. When done well, you can put literally any animal in a display. Ball pythons included. They just need a sturdy, very specifically designed enclosure to do well. I think the expectations for a planted or display enclosure for different species need to be adjusted - a ball python won't do well in the same enclosure that a dart frog would, and vice versa. I've made some pretty cool huge terrariums for animals like corn snakes or leopard geckos. The video I'm linking below sits on my desk at the office for my frog eyed geckos. They love it!
http://youtu.be/Nzu0P-aPPbw

Co-habitation
For snakes I don't usually like encouraging this, as predators rarely cohabitate in the kind of close quarters we inflict on them here in captivity. I've housed multiple ball pythons together before and can set up larger enclosures where they thrive (imagine 6 foot vision cages set up with cork and caves - they do great), but for my own at home I keep them individually the majority of the time.
I've done several multi-species habitats of smaller lizards and geckos that did extremely well. For several years I had a cage with gliding lizards, dwarf geckos, and limbless skinks where the gliding lizards and dwarf geckos were breeding quite prolifically. The limbless skinks may have had babies but I never found them. If you have a large, well set up cage with niches for each animal you're keeping, it is very doable and rewarding -but definitely more difficult than keeping animals individually.

Breeding
Ever since I started keeping my ball pythons warmer they have been little punks about breeding and I don't even want to talk about it

Assist/Force Feeding
I can and will assist feed a baby that will not start well on its own, and they usually begin feeding on their own after one or two feeds. However, I will not hold back or breed a baby that had to be assist fed to get started.

Incubation (maternal vs. incubator)
I highly prefer maternal incubation, personally. Just set em up and let em go. That's when I'll set up females with 100 degree basking areas - they often incubate just off the heat pad, which is perfect and keeps the eggs from cooking. I keep the temps up for the entire duration of incubation, as the reason they chose that spot to incubate is because with those temperatures, they could maintain their clutch at the right temps. The females are much better than I am at incubation.

Live and F/T Feeding
I feed live to all of my reptiles most of the time. The bullsnakes and retics will get frozen thawed when it's hard to get significant numbers of rats (like right now), but the ball pythons all get live. I throw the rodents in, do something nearby (usually talk in a baby voice to the blue tongues for an embarrassing amount of time...), and monitor them for a bit to make sure everyone eats.

Substrate
I prefer orchid bark, but I'll use cypress mulch too. My fire skinks and frilleds also get a mix of eco earth in theirs. Bullsnakes get shredded aspen. Retics get a blend of orchid bark and moss. ATBs are on cypress/eco earth. I have no problem mixing up bedding until I get a blend or consistency that works well for my needs.

Lighting
I put UVB on anything in a display cage. Ball pythons, retics, and bullsnakes are all in tubs/racks so they do not get UVB. But I've got it on my ATBs, my cresteds (that mercury vapor bulb, hah), frilleds, fire skinks, heck even my ornamental tarantulas in their display cages have old UVB bulbs on them. I use the old bulbs on the tarantula cages because they don't need UVB...so they just get the older bulbs that pretty much just light up the cage. Anything in display cages also gets a basking bulb, even if its just a low wattage bulb - I was pleasantly surprised at what the various animals would do when provided with naturalistic lighting. Those frog eyed geckos, for example, are definitely nocturnal, but I'm watching them on my desk now and they spend all day going inbetween the rock crevices and sticking just one part of their body out to bask. I've seen this behavior in my leopard geckos as well when I housed them in an naturalistic setup, and the same with my cresteds.

Fun topic!! I like reading these, seeing what people do. Keep em going!

-Jen

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Originally Posted by LLLReptile

I raise crested geckos under a mercury vapor bulb. :) Pretty sure that's my most controversial set up but it's also one of my most successful.

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Every time my snake room gets over 80 degrees, I panic about my cresties dying. Is this against your personal experience with them?

My apartment has spiked up to 86 (which sent me into a panic over my chinchillas), and the cresteds were fine. They can tolerate hotter temps, so if it happens, it's alright, but they do definitely seem much happier with the option to stay cooler. For 4 to 6 months of the year, mine never get below 80 just because it's so hot where I live in the summer - and they've been alright.

Interestingly, with keeping mine warmer/with the option to get warmer, they eat a wider variety of food items. Mine'll eat roaches, mealworms, even canned caterpillars and solid chunks of fruit like apples. When you look up New Caledonia weather, right now it shows it being 84 degrees F there - some areas are hotter, some are cooler, but in general it's in the mid 80s there right now. My cresteds have done well with daytime spikes into the mid to high 80s as long as at night they drop back down to cooler temps, and they can escape the basking temperatures if they want. I keep mine in a 36" x 24" enclosure - so they've got a lot of space to get away from that powersun if they want to.

-Jen

[QUOTE=Mike41793;2011141]Some topics for discussion:

Quarantine

I don't have room for a separate rack so i just make sure im careful to handle my collection before i handle new additions and to wash my hands in between.

X2 on this, I want to be able to do stricter quarentine so I just place he snakes habitat/bin away from the established collection:

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Breeding

Year round.

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those of you that breed year around, i'm interested to know a little more about how you do so. do you pair males year around? or are you constantly palpating your females for follicles year around to know when to pair? Deb, you say you drop ambient temps during cooler months instead of keeping them the same year around. does this not help get the girls that are off season back on the right track?

Background with Snakes: (added this as I feel it gives people an idea of the experience the keeper has.)
This will be my first year breeding bps but I've been keeping corns since 2001 and breeding since 2003. 2 years of vet school though it included plenty about cows and most of my professors thought that a good snake was a dead snake. Have to love it... :)

Quarantine:
30 days unless I find something 'off' about the animal. This is done in the same room but a separate rack on the opposite side of my established collection. I keep the rack a little warmer as well to help them deal with the stress of the move. Luckily nothing bad has never happened. Never dealt with mites, RI's, or any other issues with my collection. I am also very picky about any snake I bring in. If it doesn't look 100% healthy, mite free, or the breeder seems shady, it doesn't come into my home. Maybe I'm too picky but that's just my practice.

Hot Spot and Ambient Temperatures:
Hot spot for balls is at 90 in established and 92-93 for my quarantine rack. Ambient is around 78 for both. Corns are kept at 90 as well though they could care less honestly.

Hides or No Hides:
All of my snakes have hides because I use plastic shelving for my racks which leaves them more exposed than the traditional rack. The balls seem to like tight hides that they don't actually fit into (though they think they do) and the corns don't care. The balls have the Reptile Basics hides while the corns have plastic bowls from Wal-Mart with a hole cut in it and the edges softened so they don't cut. I've also used the hanging basket liners made with coconut as a hide and they seem to enjoy it (corns).

Planted/Living Vivariums and Displays:
I kill plants under good conditions much less in a tank... I do, however, keep a large display rack with 3 40 gallon breeder aquariums in my family room. The bottom is currently a Russian tort while her table is being built. The middle is my 12 y/o beardie (who used to be free-range in the house). The top is my corn snake, Flurry. I don't think I'll ever keep a ball as a display pet. The corns work well for it and actually come out for things other than food.

Co-habitation:
Been crucified for this plenty but yes, I have and did actively up until December of 2012. The reason behind it was when I first got my pair of corns, my male, Flurry, wouldn't eat. Going with the "if dogs and cats can learn from each other, why not snakes?" theory, I put them together so Flurry could watch my girl, Kitai, eat. Now, the thought of what could have happened putting 2 young corns together for a feeding, horrifies me, but at the time, no one told me how dangerous it was. To make a long story short, Flurry ate and then somehow got attached to Kitai. She could have cared less about him but when we separated them after hearing about over-breeding, cannibalism, stress, etc., he would stop eating and do nothing but cruise the tank. Logically, I know it shouldn't happen but after multiple times seeing him go on hunger strike, I gave in. Honestly, I feel it can be done safely if you know what you're doing and the signs to watch for though I wouldn't do it with an animal that has an extreme feeding response (like many corns tend to, hence pictures abounding of them eating their brothers, sisters, and their own tails). I don't feel it benefits the animals, however, despite my odd experience with my first two. As nice as it sounds to think that they love each other, I know that's not reality and won't force animals together except for breeding. If they were in large 'lifelike' enclosures with space to avoid each other, I'd be fine but not in the tub systems that I prefer to keep them in.

Breeding:
Currently going with the 3 on/4 off system for my boy. Plan on keeping this up until I see an actual ovy. I put my male into my female's enclosure and use a piece of fabric to cover 3 sides (similar to the coverage of a rack system) instead of giving them a hide. I do leave the water bowl in as they have been nice enough not to be too messy or noisy about the whole thing. Temps have not been altered at all. They locked on day 2 and keep locking without any issues since then. I continue to feed through this as well. With my corns, my original pair were kept together and bred every year like clockwork. For them, they are fed in separate containers unlike the balls who are fed in their enclosures so breeding means just putting them together and making sure they are fed plenty to keep them from eying up each other. Once I feel eggs, the boy gets to go back to his bachelor pad. I always move the males to the females enclosure for breeding. Not sure that matters but it's habit for me.

Assist/Force Feeding:
I haven't done it with bps but have done that along with tube feeding for corns. I will say this, it should only be done under dire circumstances. Most animals come around in time and with the right tricks. With very weak/small corns, I have tube fed and prefer that to a pinkie pump or force feeding. Last time I had to do this was with a 3g. hatchling who looked small enough for the pinkie to eat him. After offering pinks multiple times under multiple conditions, he was tube fed with a mixture of ferret food, water, and probiotics (blended together of course) for about 4 months before he had gotten big enough to tackle a pinkie. I always offer normal food on feeding day and then, if they refuse after a couple hours, I will then do the assist/force/tube feeding. They are always given a chance to eat on their own first though. Honestly, assist/force feeding seems to stress them out a lot more than the tube feeding does. I've never had a regurge with tubing but it has happened with forced.

Incubation (maternal vs. incubator):
Haven't done it for bps but planning on using light grating over perlite which is what I do with my corns. The bps will have an incubator but corns get incubated on the top shelf of my rack.

Live and F/T Feeding:
If I can avoid it, I will never do live feeding. My albino girl was purchased at around 80g. and already had a few scars from bites. If they will eat F/T, I don't see the point to risk them with live. Part of that is probably from having it harped on in the corn snake forums where feeding live is one of the seven deadly sins. After reading the forums here, I'm not against it if done correctly and could see that many WC bps would need live feeding. Personally, I plan to never breed any snake that will not take F/T as I feel feeding response is an important part of a strong snake. I'm also spoiled by corns who will eat anything/everything/and then some... I say do what works for the snake and you but if you do live, it needs to be done right with a calm, well fed rodent and then supervised especially with young, inexperienced snakes. Yes, it's instinctual but lets face it, some of these guys are just downright clumsy. :)

Substrate:
Paper towels though I'm starting to think I should just own a factory that produces them. I have used aspen and ecoearth for the corns but cleaning is easier with paper towels in the tubs for me.

Lighting:
My racks get natural, Wisconsin, lighting. I only keep the lights on when I'm in checking on them or feeding. This has kept my corns on a regular breeding schedule for years without any temp changes needed. Maybe this is luck and maybe it's just coincidence, but I think light plays a big part in their cycles.

Snake Room Setup:
Room of their own that they share with inanimate objects. It has southern and western facing windows which I leave uncovered for natural light cycles. No one goes in there on a regular basis except me to check on them morning and evening so they are in a very low traffic area.

Handling:
Everyone gets time out though some more than others. For bps, I've been going based on how jumpy/nervous they seem when pulled out and watching for feeding issues to determine how much it is bothering them. Ceti is a rather nervous girl so I handle her rarely though none of them have ever refused a meal. Aria is always calm so I take her out almost daily, including while in shed. Though many people seem to frown on this, she's shown no signs of stress and I want to ensure she remains used to that amount of handling as I do educational programs. There, she is passed around from kid to kid and needs to be 'bomb proof' as I like to call it. With my corns, they are handled regularly even if they start out a bit nippy/nervous. The reason behind that is that I haven't had one who doesn't calm down after getting used to handling and with my corns, I pride myself on family friendly pets. None of them leave my house unless they can be handled by anyone without fear of biting. With bps, I plan on noting their personalities but will not push them to deal with handling the way the corns are because they seem to stress more easily. The last thing I want is to stress a baby into not eating.

Most of my experience is with corns but maybe it will help. Most of it has been learned from trial and error, reading forums like this one, and talking with successful breeders. I've really enjoyed reading the different ways people keep their collections from small to large. :)

Quarantine
depends, sometimes a month, sometimes not at all

Hot Spot and Ambient Temperatures
ambient 76, hot spot 89
Hides or No Hides
no hides usually, i try and break them if they come from someone who has used hides, this sometimes takes up to 6 months of spotty feedings
Planted/Living Vivariums and Displays
sometimes, depends really

Co-habitation
no
Breeding
male bps at 450g females at 1400g
Assist/Force Feeding
if i have to, i wait till the 2nd month but also depending on the size of hatchlings. I hatched a Bel in 2010 at 26 grams and i only waited 3 weeks. Took 2 force feds, 3 assists then she was ok.
Incubation (maternal vs. incubator)
i live in az, and the humidity is horrible, i only incubate with a bator

Live and F/T Feeding
both, but i also pk alot
Substrate
aspen, i tried newspaper and paper towels but i dont like the snakes slithering in crap when im at work or making a mess with water bowles.
Lighting
just room lighting

Feeding- Live, F/T....most only eat live, some eat both and only get f/t when I have an excess of feeders and need to freeze some off.

Heating- Heat cable, 90 hot spot, 80-82 ambient during the day, 76-78 at night, year round.

Breeding- when they are ready...males generally start around 600-650 grams, females depends on a combo of age/weight. I got a nice clutch from a 22 month old girl at 1,800 grams, and have had a couple good clutches from girls 3-4 years old at 1,200 grams.

Only use hides for the pickiest of the picky, no plants/decorations...but then again, they're all in racks.

Cohabitation- Have done it with no ill effects(there are no special techniques to it, outside of the ability to practice common sense), and I currently do not.

Substrate- unprinted newspaper

Quarantine- 2 months(ish), snake room is on ground level, and have a walk in closet I use upstairs. I have pulled breeders out of my established collection and put them in the QT room to breed, and have then kept them in for an extended period.

Assist/force feed- Have done it, prefer not to...and have only needed to with hatchlings that were real slow to start feeding.

Humidifier in the winter, dehumidifier in the summer.

Other necessities(for me)- plenty of back up water bowls, tubs, heating elements...ability to pop and probe...2 temp guns...generator...spray bottles...back up plan in the event of an emergency(health, financial, or otherwise).