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

[gsarchie]

Crotalids,

You're enclosures are beautiful and I especially love your Crotalus horridus enclosure. It looks very realistic and similar to where I would find the radio-tagged TRs that I worked with while I was at KU. However, I never once found a snake out, as yours are, in the open. Once we knew that we were right on top of them (from the strength of the signal that we picked up with our antenna), it always took a good while to actally locate them, if we could locate them at all, in the brush/leaves/sticks/etc. Many times they would remain in the same place for up to a week (we went out 3 to 4 times a week to take readings with a GPS on their location to determine things such as home range and distance traveled in a summer) before moving, but if we EVER messed with them for any reason they would not be in that same hiding spot the next time that we went out. Based on these observsations, as a biologist who specialized in herpetology while at school, I would feel safe saying that 1)these animals are incredibly secretive and 2) that they hate human interaction. Even before I ever worked with them my professor informed me that they are a species that is exceptionally sensitive to human disturbance and that if you would catch one in a rough manner (i.e. squeezing it with tongs, fighting with it as it is trying to escape, etc.) then it will NEVER, that's NEVER, return to that location again. I've also read a published paper dealing with stress hormones in Agkistrodon contortrix. They took blood samples from animals immediately upon capture and then took more samples after being handled for a brief period of time (5 minutes if my memory serves me correctly). Turns out that after 5 mintues the levels of a stress hormone that the snakes produce were elevated to a level that were statistically significant when compared to the blood samples taken immediately upon capture. How does this apply here? Being handled, even just moved and placed out of their "natural" habitats for cleaning their enclosure, can stress the animals. I'm sure this can happen with all species of snakes, balls included, but what I am getting at is that keeping wild animals in captivity it anything but "natural."

If you think that the "natural" enclosures that you provide your animals are "natural" to anyone but yourself and other humans looking at them, then you are fooling yourself. Period. I am not knocking you, however, as your display enclosures are beautiful, and I would love to get into keeping hots myself once my sons are a bit older if not once they are out of the house, however you are judging what your snakes feel based on your own uniquely human emotions, which snakes do not have. I am very passionate about my animals and I keep them in tubs for THEIR benefit, not my own. In CO the air is always incredibly dry and when I kept my snakes in tanks I had to mist them every single day while they were in the process of shedding, which is likely at least somewhat stressful for them. Tubs are better for both shedding and feeding response in my experience, and I will continue to keep them in tubs until someone shows me evidence that it is contrary to keeping them in good health. I do use a loose substrate, not newspaper, and what I use is actually quite expensive. While I feel that my snakes are more comfortable on it than they would be on newspaper, no one can offer any evidence to the contrary, so I personally will with hold any judgement on those that do use newspaper.

We are all entitled to our opinions, but I think the problem that people are having with your opinions is that the way that you are expressing them makes it seem like you are passing judgement. While you may be, know that doing that won't go over well when a majority of users on this site are the very people that you are passing judgement on. I'm glad that you are passionate about your animals, as I am sure that they receive the best care that you can provide them, however I can assure you that everyone here is passionate about their animals, otherwise they would keep their love of them to themselves and not use this forum to share their passion with others.