I haven't been 'in' the community for a long time, but have had at least one BP at a time for many years. I recently( past few months) found 'proper' care sheets and of course made adjustments as needed. Since then, I have acquired 6 more BP's. I can now see why so many people choose to go to a rack setup.

Racks or tubs are definitely a VERY acceptable habitat for BP's. You can maintain a perfect husbandry very easily and on top of that, they are very easy to clean. Racks are space efficient and just all around great for larger collections.

My question comes in about racks providing a 'quality' of life for our animals. I realize that BP's ( as well as other snakes ) do not need a lot of space. They rest a lot during the day and usually only wonder about for food at night.

The thing is though, when I had my BP's in enclosures/tanks with greenery, rocks, branches, etc they tended to roam around a bit more at night. I currently have them in tubs because I didn't have the money at the time to get what I needed to maintain the proper heat and humidity requirements in the enclosures. Since moving them to tubs, they seem to stay put even at night.

They are all still feeding just fine and husbandry is right where it was in the enclosures before winter hit and started messing with everything. They are acting the same as before with the exception of the 'night roaming'.

They seem to just 'sit' there more now than they did before.

So finally the questions comes in at:

Do you think that Racks or Tubs 'degrade' the quality of life of our animals over enclosures?

I know they really don't need the 'exercise' but do you think they get enough of it in a rack/tub?

Do you use racks/tubs just because you have a larger collection and it is more costly / space inefficient to use enclosures?

If you only had 6-12 animals, would you still use a rack? Assuming that most racks hold about 6-10 tubs from what I've seen.

I just interested in to what everyone's opinions are. I realize that BP's thrive just fine in racks/tubs and am not 'downing' the use of them by any means. I just want my animals to have the 'closest' to wild-life experience as possible.