Huge enclosure set-up

my two cents, this is late, but i was lurking :3

imagine if you couldnt see anything more than 2 feet away from you, you couldn't hear, and youre physically on the smaller side.

now, imagine if you were in the middle of nowhere (imagine any kind of scenery) where you were prey to bigger animals, and even your own kind! you had hides, but everything just looks so big and all you know is that you want to be somewhere safe and dark and warm, with food that will come by once in a while, and where your body can touch the sides of the hiding place so you know you're alone, and nothing else that could be scary is in there with you.

this is the logic i use. i read that although ball pythons are predators to many animals, they are also prey to even more. it would make sense to want to be in a small enclosure, where nothing can get you, and you're familiar with your whereabouts.

i'm no veteran or expert in any way, so my logic clearly has many loopholes. but i read a lot of beep things online, and in books, because i want to try to see things from a beep's perspective in order for me to care for it the right way. again, just my two cents! :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John1982

I think you should turn an entire room into your ball python enclosure.

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I thought of this before actually

Home Depot sells http://i1.squidoocdn.com/resize/squi..._bottom_seal.j
Under-Door Sealers to prevent your ball from escaping your room.
Also, It's actually is 100% Possible to make your room a ball python enclosure.
Cleaning would be a haggle but if you're passionate, then I don't see why not.

There are wide varieties of carpet that can be laid down across the entire room safe for snakes.
Hides are easy to make
Make sure the room has no tight crevices in which the snake could efficiently hide from you.
IF you live in a hot state, then keeping your room between 80-85 degrees should be no problem.
Humidity however, may be an issue, unless you get a humidifier for your room.

Make it work!

I'm going to throw my hat into the ring because gosh darn it I guess I'm a sucker for abuse. :P OP, I'm going to try to answer your questions but (like other people have done) facts sometimes come off as rude because they're the hard truth, the bare bones.

The reason everyone is using the reasoning of "common knowledge" is because common knowledge is what people over decades of keeping these animals have amassed. You can't say it came from just one person necessarily, but now with the internet we can take all that information and compile it in one place, therefore being able to give you all of that research in one post. If we were to try and quote all the information from everyone, then we'd be sitting here a while. But, that being said, there's a reason why if you go to any reputable breeder/keeper facility (or even most successful private keepers) you'll see that their Beeps (and other snakes) are being kept pretty much in the same way: in tubs (to maximize space, plus they're ideal for keeping proper husbandry: I learned the hard way about what a nightmare it is trying to keep proper humidity and temps in an aquarium). Tubs also can double as hides, since an appropriate-sized tub will pretty much double as a hide (and mimic that small hidey-hole their instincts tell them to find). There's also more aesthetically pleasing options, such as Boaphile or Animal Plastics enclosures, but those will run you a pretty penny. You're rather new to this site, so you've probably yet to realize that quite a few people on this thread (Slim, Archimedes, satomi325, to name a few) have been on this site for a while giving consistently good advice. And they, in turn, got their advice from other veteran people either on this site or somewhere else. They ARE the proof that this advice works.

Now, on to your original question: can you keep a Beep in a large enclosure? Yes, it's possible. Not every snake is the same, so as long as the basics are right (temperature, humidity, food, environment, etc) are correct, there's no reason not to try it. Some signs of stress are constant roaming (Beeps are nocturnal, so if your snake is out and about all hours of the day, then it's reasonable to assume it's stressed. Now I won't say you won't EVER see them out during daylight hours, but they shouldn't be out ALL the time), not eating and regurgitation. IF YOU ARE GOING TO TRY A LARGE ENCLOSURE, you'll want to clutter it up. Hides, fake plants, and other safe reptile things that will clutter up a big area and make it look not so big to your Beeper. Think about it this way: if you were 2in tall, had no arms or legs and had to slither wherever you went, you wouldn't want to cross a large open area for fear you'd get attacked. YES, we keep snakes in captivity but that DOESN'T mean they are domesticated. They still have instincts on par with their wild counterparts in Africa. If you have an enclosure that's too open, not only is there a possibility of stress, they might not leave the side they feel "safe" in, which means they won't be able to properly thermoregulate their body, which leads to more stress and even digestive and respiratory issues.

Another thing you'll find that gets very old very quickly is cleaning. Large, complicated enclosures are a NIGHTMARE to clean. Not only do you have to take everything out and clean the enclosure, but you have to clean all of the stuff you put in there too. I had a 40gal. breeder tank for my adult Beep; all I had in there was aspen, two hides, a waterfall (we thought it would be fancy and a great touch but man did we regret it when it came time to clean it), and two plants and it was a chore just to properly clean all that. Just cleaning my BCIs enclosure now (which is 6ft. x 2ft. x 3ft.) that only has a climbing branch, a water bowl and aspen is a task. Most people either don't have the time or don't want to do all that cleaning: in comparison, all you have to to with a tub is take it out and wash it in the sink, then replace the bedding and the water bowl.

Long story short: if you want to build a big enclosure and can still keep basic husbandry right, by all means go for it. If that's what you want eventually and you can do it successfully, we'd love it see it! :gj:

A point to ponder, Royal Pythons are thought of by many animals in Africa as a very tasty food item. Royals have learned ways to protect themselves from being someones meal in a number of ways -- the most obvious being able to hide.

Instinctively, a very young wild Royal has to know that it is very vulnerable to pretty much whatever might be hiding behind the next bush. It probably lives in a constant state of high stress, but it survives if it's one of the lucky ones. The stress is a necessary factor in its survival.

Though never having lived in the wild, captive bred snakes still operate with a hard-wired instinctual set of behavioral patterns. Its every action is designed for one purpose -- to survive.

A tiny Royal in a tiny enclosure means that there are much fewer places for a predator, looking to eat it, to hide. It will have every inch of that enclosure investigated in short order. A small enclosure may not be the prettiest enclosure to look at but the snake's stress is much reduced if it feels less vulnerable.

Now put that same tiny Royal in a HUGE enclosure. You can put hides all over the place but the snake's stress will, no doubt, increase because there are now LOTS of places for a hungry predator to hide. Its instincts compel it to feel that it has now become VERY vulnerable to what might be lurking close by waiting for it to make a mistake.

High levels of stress are a necessary evil to be endured by a wild Royal trying to survive. But a little Royal being kept for a pet has no compelling need to endure that stress to survive. All it needs is for its husbandry requirements to be met, and for that "giant thing" that holds it from time to time to also feed it a rodent when it feels hungry.

Anthropomorphizing? No doubt. lol And your little Royal might be able to deal with huge amounts of stress and survive nicely in a huge cage. Then again, it might not. Pray tell, why put to the test?

<><Peace

"Looks at the expiration date and gasps, then immediately runs to toss the old fetid thread in the dumpster"