OK I keep getting flack for keeping my snakes in a rack system

[FIREBLADE]

I right now have over 20 Ball Pythons and yes I will breed some of them.
Anyway my friends keep telling me they should be in big tanks rather than my system.
They have room to move around I adjust the tubs to the size of the snake but its so much easier to keep the temp and humidity.
But everyone and i don't have any friends who have snakes keeps hounding me to get aquariums for them.
I like my system its clean and easy to care for am I wrong.
All my snakes get handled and spend time outside there place unless they seem to get stressed.

[katiekat]

Try explaining to these people WHY they are in a rack and not in aquariums.. aquariums are for fish not for snakes, especially ball pythons. Tell them the habits of balls and it will make more sense to them hopefully.

[BP2]

20+ Aquariums is just way too much! Your looking at an entire room for all of them.... Or one corner of a room with 2 racks..... Racks are are just better for the keeper and the animals. They are less clear "less stress for the animal" they are easier to clean and like you mentioned they hold heat and humidity better. I'd tell your friend to back off and do some research. Balls spend 80-90% of their lives in rodent holes cramped up, and sitting rodent feces.... They are more than happy with a nice, clean, and warm tub!

[Daybreaker]

All the non snake people I know just cannot fathom why we keep our snakes in "tupperware containers". They don't understand and I don't expect them too because they don't have a clue (even when I explain it to them). If it's obvious your snakes are healthy and well fed then they should know that you're obviously doing something right

[FIREBLADE]

20+ Aquariums is just way too much! Your looking at an entire room for all of them.... Or one corner of a room with 2 racks..... Racks are are just better for the keeper and the animals. They are less clear "less stress for the animal" they are easier to clean and like you mentioned they hold heat and humidity better. I'd tell your friend to back off and do some research. Balls spend 80-90% of their lives in rodent holes cramped up, and sitting rodent feces.... They are more than happy with a nice, clean, and warm tub!

Thanks I will make them read this

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All the non snake people I know just cannot fathom why we keep our snakes in "tupperware containers". They don't understand and I don't expect them too because they don't have a clue (even when I explain it to them). If it's obvious your snakes are healthy and well fed then they should know that you're obviously doing something right

They are in good health weight and size and seem a lot more relaxed at least to me.

[Gene Collins]

Tell In the words of Johnny Depp tell your friends "You can place your lips upon my posterior and kiss it repeatedly." LOL Even though you should respect the advice of your friends, if it's on a subject they have little to no experience with then they should butt out in my opinion. I think they are just mad because they can't easily view them without opening the tubs lol. When I moved my two into my rack my mom complained about just that. With a pouty face she said "awww now I can't just walk by and look at them" She is too scared to open the tubs and take one out lol

[BHReptiles]

I agree with the others: your friends simply do not understand ball pythons. They are probably used to seeing snakes in aquariums and not in a rack. My family still has issues with my snakes being in a rack system. My mother still comes in and wants to "see" my ball pythons. I still have to explain to her that they are usually hiding anyway, so if she wants to see one, she has to take it out. For her pleasure, I do have one corn snake in a tank. She's not for breeding and is just a pet anyway (so I say this now...). However, she still doesn't like the fact that the corn snake is always hiding too xD

[Crotalids]

While your snakes are probably healthy, I have a big gripe with keepers that just keep snakes in a rack on newspaper and a water bowl.

It shows no passion at all. This is one of my rattlesnakes tanks:

All of the talk saying a rack is less stressful is rubbish. If the set up is correct, there is no reason for any snake to be stressed. I keep my baby rattlers in 3ft Vivs, even when I've had ones that are a few weeks old. None have ever missed a feed because they have plenty of hiding spaces etc.

One of my best friends keeps around 70 rattlesnakes, every single one is in a viv. Every single one has a naturalistic enclosure, that's how it should be. Even when I own 100 odd snakes, there is no way I won't have them all in Vivs, after all they're my pride and joy.

[reptileexperts]

Crot, venomous are a different story. Ball Pythons thrive better in the seclusion of a tub. They don't care what their substrate looks like as long as its clean and functional. You can have a nice big viv but I promise that it has a higher Ammonia concentration from the urates than you will find in properly kept rack systems. Each keeper can have their own way about doing things, and that's fine. I use to have wall to wall 40 gallon breeder tanks, with tons of lights and UTH, and yeah my snakes thrived, never missed a meal, and were generally happy in appearance. But I also kept 3 sides of the tanks covered at all times, and live in a place where humidity is very easy to accomplish with an open screen top unlike some areas.

Snakes are secretive in nature, and do cram themselves in small corners. I would NEVER keep a crot in a tub since you can not monitor them easily or safely without using hooks to open the tub every time, and hope you have a good lableing system. But for all my pythons and colubrids I have no issues at all with tubs. I also use PVC enclosures for my giants (Retics, Burmese, Coastal Carpets, BCI), and they are amazing setups in their own mind, and look like a fantastic display, but as soon as I moved some of my female jungles from the PVC tanks and into tubs, they started growing at a faster rate? What changed, only the cage. Feeding times, prey size, and temperature all remained the same. Could it be because they received less exercise? Possibly, but the snakes are lean and not obese.

Just because you chose to do enclosures one way, like many people do, it doesn't mean that the others are wrong. As long as your snakes have the proper temperature gradients, humidity, enclosure size, and a proper number of areas to hide, your doing things fine regardless of how you do it. Racks are not meant for dogs and cats or birds and fish. They are meant for reptiles. This is why they work so well.

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Crot, venomous are a different story. Ball Pythons thrive better in the seclusion of a tub. They don't care what their substrate looks like as long as its clean and functional. You can have a nice big viv but I promise that it has a higher Ammonia concentration from the urates than you will find in properly kept rack systems. Each keeper can have their own way about doing things, and that's fine. I use to have wall to wall 40 gallon breeder tanks, with tons of lights and UTH, and yeah my snakes thrived, never missed a meal, and were generally happy in appearance. But I also kept 3 sides of the tanks covered at all times, and live in a place where humidity is very easy to accomplish with an open screen top unlike some areas.

Snakes are secretive in nature, and do cram themselves in small corners. I would NEVER keep a crot in a tub since you can not monitor them easily or safely without using hooks to open the tub every time, and hope you have a good lableing system. But for all my pythons and colubrids I have no issues at all with tubs. I also use PVC enclosures for my giants (Retics, Burmese, Coastal Carpets, BCI), and they are amazing setups in their own mind, and look like a fantastic display, but as soon as I moved some of my female jungles from the PVC tanks and into tubs, they started growing at a faster rate? What changed, only the cage. Feeding times, prey size, and temperature all remained the same. Could it be because they received less exercise? Possibly, but the snakes are lean and not obese.

Just because you chose to do enclosures one way, like many people do, it doesn't mean that the others are wrong. As long as your snakes have the proper temperature gradients, humidity, enclosure size, and a proper number of areas to hide, your doing things fine regardless of how you do it. Racks are not meant for dogs and cats or birds and fish. They are meant for reptiles. This is why they work so well.

[Crotalids]

Crot, venomous are a different story. Ball Pythons thrive better in the seclusion of a tub. They don't care what their substrate looks like as long as its clean and functional. You can have a nice big viv but I promise that it has a higher Ammonia concentration from the urates than you will find in properly kept rack systems. Each keeper can have their own way about doing things, and that's fine. I use to have wall to wall 40 gallon breeder tanks, with tons of lights and UTH, and yeah my snakes thrived, never missed a meal, and were generally happy in appearance. But I also kept 3 sides of the tanks covered at all times, and live in a place where humidity is very easy to accomplish with an open screen top unlike some areas.

Snakes are secretive in nature, and do cram themselves in small corners. I would NEVER keep a crot in a tub since you can not monitor them easily or safely without using hooks to open the tub every time, and hope you have a good lableing system. But for all my pythons and colubrids I have no issues at all with tubs. I also use PVC enclosures for my giants (Retics, Burmese, Coastal Carpets, BCI), and they are amazing setups in their own mind, and look like a fantastic display, but as soon as I moved some of my female jungles from the PVC tanks and into tubs, they started growing at a faster rate? What changed, only the cage. Feeding times, prey size, and temperature all remained the same. Could it be because they received less exercise? Possibly, but the snakes are lean and not obese.

Just because you chose to do enclosures one way, like many people do, it doesn't mean that the others are wrong. As long as your snakes have the proper temperature gradients, humidity, enclosure size, and a proper number of areas to hide, your doing things fine regardless of how you do it. Racks are not meant for dogs and cats or birds and fish. They are meant for reptiles. This is why they work so well.

- - - Updated - - -

Crot, venomous are a different story. Ball Pythons thrive better in the seclusion of a tub. They don't care what their substrate looks like as long as its clean and functional. You can have a nice big viv but I promise that it has a higher Ammonia concentration from the urates than you will find in properly kept rack systems. Each keeper can have their own way about doing things, and that's fine. I use to have wall to wall 40 gallon breeder tanks, with tons of lights and UTH, and yeah my snakes thrived, never missed a meal, and were generally happy in appearance. But I also kept 3 sides of the tanks covered at all times, and live in a place where humidity is very easy to accomplish with an open screen top unlike some areas.

Snakes are secretive in nature, and do cram themselves in small corners. I would NEVER keep a crot in a tub since you can not monitor them easily or safely without using hooks to open the tub every time, and hope you have a good lableing system. But for all my pythons and colubrids I have no issues at all with tubs. I also use PVC enclosures for my giants (Retics, Burmese, Coastal Carpets, BCI), and they are amazing setups in their own mind, and look like a fantastic display, but as soon as I moved some of my female jungles from the PVC tanks and into tubs, they started growing at a faster rate? What changed, only the cage. Feeding times, prey size, and temperature all remained the same. Could it be because they received less exercise? Possibly, but the snakes are lean and not obese.

Just because you chose to do enclosures one way, like many people do, it doesn't mean that the others are wrong. As long as your snakes have the proper temperature gradients, humidity, enclosure size, and a proper number of areas to hide, your doing things fine regardless of how you do it. Racks are not meant for dogs and cats or birds and fish. They are meant for reptiles. This is why they work so well.

First of all, you can keep venomous in a tub. The venom extraction facilities do exactly this, due to the need to cram in as many animals as possible for the extractions. They have a valid reason. For using small enclosures.

You cannot tell me a ball python wouldn't appreciate a larger naturalistic enclosure. I have friends with Royals in 5ft Vivs that feed perfectly well and are active.

I will always disagree with you on this. As I will never keep any of my animals in a small enclosure, or an enclosure that doesn't represent their natural habitat. If I ever did, that would be the day I stop keeping reptiles.

There is no reason why a snake would grow faster in a smaller enclosure with the same food, apart from less exercise. A smaller space doesn't suddenly increase the nutritional value of the feeder.

People say Gaboon vipers are animals that are stressed very easily. Yet I have my two babies in 2ft tubs when they're less than a foot in size. But neither has ever shown a sign of stress. If the set up is correct, no animal will stress even if they viv is 200ft.

I'm not saying its wrong, but it shows a lack of passion in my eyes.