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

[Crotalids]

Would you consider these to fall within your standards of "naturalistic set up" ?

None of them are great to be honest, but better than an empty tub.

Maybe in your opinion a naturalistic enclosure is not expensive or hard to maintain, but in my opinion, it is. Cage furniture is not especially cheap (unless there is some reptile supply dollar store I don't know about?) and neither are nice display tanks, lights, and heating equipment.

As for maintenance, sure you can spot clean but you should also be doing a full clean every month or two. A full clean of 20+ enclosures would take me days by myself. I can clean out 20+ tubs and my rat colonies in a few hours.

If you want to provide your snakes with an "enriching" environment, that is totally cool. Me personally, I choose to give them a simple environment . Neither of us can confirm that the naturalistic environment actually gives the snake any sort of benefit. I'll keep doing what I do, and you keep doing what you do. I actually really like your naturalistic enclosures and I'd like to see more of them, or some info on what went into them and how you set it up.

Rather than sitting here and arguing about who is right and who is wrong, how about we share our knowledge? Your opinion isn't going to sway the majority, so why sit around and fight about it?

No ones fighting, well i'm not it's just a discussion

I do a full clean of my enclosures every month. Throw out all the substrate and replace it all.

I only keep royals so I'm only referring to them.

As for rack vs naturalistic cage. While I can't answer for everyone, I'll answer for myself. I mentioned in a previous post that I chose racks because the snakes seem to do equally well in a rack compared to other enclosures. Maybe even better in some instances?
Maintaining a newspaper tub requires more frequent cleaning than one using organic substrate. When a snake soils their newspaper, you have to change it out entirely. I have to change newspaper once or twice a week for each of my snakes. Sometimes even more. I've used aspen before and that was easier to maintain. At least it was for me. Spot cleaning is easy to pick up on the spot and dumping bedding once a month. That was less work for me than newspaper. But both aren't difficult. I was just pointing out that paper needs more frequent maintenance. I'm a full time university student so money isn't growing on trees for me. I get newspaper for free from school so that helps a lot with costs. I also have limited (temporary) space so full blown display enclosures aren't logical right now.

But when I get my own house and have a steady income, I would eventually like to try a naturalistic enclosure for 2 or 3 of my more established, more confident royals. I don't think the rest would tolerate the change very well.

But I would definitely do a nice natural set up for other less sensitive species for sure.
From what I've seen from most other members here, they do the same with their non ball python animals.


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Fair enough! I'm also a student.

I don't buy it. When given the opportunity, the army of geniuses who think that there is only one way to skin a cat rail against people who keep two snakes in one enclosure, use overheat heat emitters, use glass tanks, use pine bedding, etc. etc. Where's the 14 page manifesto debating that junk science point buy point?

Yep, Crotalids is coming on strong and probably won't get many "Thank Yous" when he posts a picture of himself in the bathroom mirror in one of the two leg-humping threads. Hopefully, he can live with that shame.

Frankly, as someone who writes rebuttals to all the pots that think tupperware is the only right way to keep a snake, belly heat is the only way to heat, that two snakes can't ever be cohabitated and that pine bedding is deadly, think that those pots need to stop calling out the one black kettle who is guilty of doing the same thing they do in day in and day out.

I have seen naturalistic set ups for many species of snakes - yes, even one where the keeper used a cermaic pot wrapped in papier mache to simulate a termite mount. I have seen snakes thrive in them. Are they harder to clean? Yes and no. Are they easier on the keeper? No, but as has been pointed out in the cohabbing thread, doing things for the convenience of the keeper is EVIL and shame on the poor idiot who dare to take a short cut for his, not the snake's, benefit.

Are they beneficial to the snake? That's the $64 question.......maybe, maybe not.

I have seen one of the finest practitioners in the art of keeping snakes keep his large colubrids in completely natural set ups, replete with live plants and small trees. I have seen how those animals interact with their environments.

I have seen the same species kept in rubbermaid and iris tubs and I have first hand heard people who keep them so argue that what's the point of a larger space when all they do is use their hide?

Well, given the space, these snakes look for food, utilize several thermoregulation zones, bury themselves in leaf litter, poke around in hollow logs and climb branches. The use their hides less and use their environment more.

When they aren't robotically stuffed with a fat rodent every week like clockwork, and instead have to look in their environments for different items in different places at differing time spans, they will actively "hunt". I'd make the argument that a properly executed naturalistic enclosure (without predators and parasites - duh) is superior to the ubiquitous tub.

Drop the hive mentality, drones. If Crotalids is giving you a dose of holier-than-thou-judgment, make him come correct. But a pox on you filthy hypocrites that are cheesed at him for taking a page from your effed up intolerance playbooks. Deal with the fact that the tub is a serviceable tool, a perfectly acceptable method of keeping SOME species of snakes, but that a properly done naturalistic environment is probably the ideal.

Didn't realise people actually care about thanks on a forum...They must live a boring life if they do.

A friend of mine keeps his rattlesnakes in tubs with nothing but a hide in there and bowl, and he's always said that his rattlesnakes are lazy. I'm not surprised..If you came and watched mine for a day or so, they are active, even after feeding. They regularly explore their surroundings, and i actually like to remove certain hides every now and then, and replace them with a different one. The effect is there to see, as pretty soon the snakes are out and about exploring their new surroundings.

Another thing that i can do with the snakes that don't hold onto their food, is after they've envenomated the prey, is to actually hide it. Forcing them to track it down, a lot of venomous keepers let the snake strike and leave it in front of them. I know non venomous keepers to do this, by making something they can hide food in and leave it in the viv at feeding time and let the snake pick up the scent and hunt down the prey item.