What's With Keeping Snakes In Racks Small Without Hides?

[Jhill001]

I wish I could see the picture so I knew what you were talking about specifically but going off the other replies I'm gonna say I have a decent grasp of what's happening.

Here's the deal, ridiculously small tubs for anything but neonate snakes should be frowned upon for obvious reasons. I saw someone reference keeping an adult snake in 15qt tubs. That's around 13x8x5 inches, if someone claims to have been doing it for years then what they've been doing is abusing animals for years. Sorry, I can't even fit my foot in that cage and if someone is keeping their's in that size of a tub they don't need to be telling anyone how to take care of their snakes because they aren't doing a good job I don't think anyone here would argue against that and I know a lot of tub keepers on this forum.

Finally onto the debate any conversation like this devolves into:

Now are tubs themselves bad? No, in my opinion they aren't. And I keep my snakes in large naturalistic terrariums.

I've seen some pretty tremendous ball python setups in tanks or plastic terrariums, it honestly makes me wonder why they are so popular and whether they bothered to research their animal at all. What is the number one thing we know about ball pythons? They do nothing. So to put all of that effort into nice naturalistic enclosures, at least for this species seems like a bit of a waste of time although there are tricks a keeper can use in order to encourage even a ball python to come out and about more so I'm not trying to insult anyone who's doing that with their ball pythons but it's frustrating for me with my enclosures and I'm keeping much more active North American colubrids so I can't imagine how a BP keeper must feel.

Overall the tanks vs PVC/wood terrariums vs tubs debate is stupid. The only thing you should ask yourself is do you want a sterile setup or not. Sterile means simple substrate, simple decor, simple water, if you do keep your snakes in a tub. It's stupid to keep an aquarium or terrarium out in the open with nothing but newspaper as a substrate, two hides and a waterbowl.

If you want nice decor and something to look at then get a tank or pvc terrarium or build one.

BOOM, I just ended the whole debate, there is nothing intrinsically better for a snake in any of the three described boxes just a few things are easier in some.

Just because I've seen it mentioned before, anyone who claims that their snake started eating better after being moved to a tub probably had their snakes in simple tank setups that did not appropriately address the biggest need a snake has which is security. Had they simply blocked off 3 sides with some dark opaque paper I wouldn't be surprised if they would have had the same result they did as when they put it in a tub because an enclosure with 4 see through sides is going to need more than 2 hides and some newspaper or an inch of aspen in order to address a snakes need for security.

Tubs and certain terrariums only hold heat better because of reduced airflow, not because of any actual difference in what they are made of especially at the thicknesses we use for enclosures.

How important is proper airflow? Well I know that snakes don't need as much air as mammals but having constant fresh air can't possibly be a bad thing as long as all other factors are maintained.

Tub keeping is easy mode, do snakes need nice enclosures? No. But do they need enough room to at least move around a bit? Yes, absolutely 1000000%. Tank keeping takes a bit of extra effort, if you wanna put in the effort to do it right then do it.


Anyone telling someone they are keeping a snake incorrectly purely based on the style of cage alone is an idiot.