Absolutes in Reptile Care

[Kara]

Absolutely...

A) ...gain and continuously expand on a thorough understanding of the husbandry requirements of any animal in your care at any time. Do not blindly take every bit of husbandry info at face value, but actually stop and think about how each facet of your husbandry - combined with a reptile's natural behavior - affects the animal(s) in your collection.

B) ...Identify reliable sources of information on your herps. The Internet is full of self-proclaimed experts. Learn to weed through all the "notice me's" and look at someone's actual track record with their animals when considering their advice. Through careful thought & assessment, try to learn from other keepers' mistakes, thereby potentially minimizing your own - ask yourself, "What can I learn from this situation to avoid going through the same problems with my animals?"

C) ...ask questions! Ask ask ask! It is OK not to know everything, and nobody does, whether they have one reptile or one thousand. Just remember that if you're not quite sure, it is always better to ask for clarification (even repeatedly) than to keep your mouth shut for fear of asking something "stupid" & potentially risking the well-being of the animals in your care.

D) ...stop and assess how far you've come since you've started keeping reptiles. Look back over how you've grown as a keeper, mistakes that you've made, corrected & learned from, and be honest with yourself in terms of your abilities as well as areas for improvement.

E) ...when A-D are firmly in place, remember that it may be necessary to "think outside the sweaterbox" from time to time. "Always" and "never" are hard words to apply to animals...just when we think we have things down pat, they love to teach us something new.

[771subliminal]

But they don't all live in termite mounds! I think this fallacy got started because the gravid females tend to seek out burrows and termite mounds as a safe place to lay their eggs, and the collectors of WC ball pythons know to look there for an entire clutch. These snakes live in shrubbery and mangroves also. Given this, I think a several degree temp gradient (around each average high and average low) is appropriate...

I was thinking something close, but with humans. You think that if humans were caught as a pet that our captors would think that they should keep us alone in a small cage with avg temps of 68-75 cuz we are mostly found in small quarters such as a home or cubicle. We dont know really all that much about bp's in the wild. Certainly not as much as we would like. They are still very much a mystery.

[soy.lor.n]

I was thinking something close, but with humans. You think that if humans were caught as a pet that our captors would think that they should keep us alone in a small cage with avg temps of 68-75 cuz we are mostly found in small quarters such as a home or cubicle. We dont know really all that much about bp's in the wild. Certainly not as much as we would like. They are still very much a mystery.

I'd spend all the time in my warm side hide and never venture into the cold side at all and people would tell my owner "Oh that's just what they do, humans are shy by nature" hehe