My Bioactive Arid/Desert Enclosure for Trans-Pecos Rat Snake

[TofuTofuTofu]

It has been a while since my last update, but I wanted to post a sort of “final” larger update post for this project.


(the enclosure today)



(Chico in his new home)

Rocks:
My Trans-Pecos ratsnake, Chico, was too big for the rock hides I had initially constructed. I removed my beetles, rearranged the rocks, and secured the rock formations with marine epoxy (probably does not need to be marine epoxy, but I had some in my house from another project). In doing this, I also had to move the existing plants, and I moved the ollas as well to better suit the plants.

I don’t have much guidance for making the rock hides; it took me hours of rearranging and pondering, and I bought a few extra rocks that were flatter in shape. My only concern about this was, in an emergency, how would I get him out of a hide? But the rocks are not glued to the floor of the cage, so I could technically life the entire rock hide if the house was burning down or something; it is just pretty heavy.

One hide was constructed above most of a heat mat (the heat mat I have is honestly pretty small, and takes up about 1/4 of the cage or less). The hide only has a thin layer of soil between it and the glass/the heat mat underneath. In both hides, I put a thin layer of (completely dry! Don’t dampen) sphagnum moss. Also, I did pack some sphagnum moss into any gaps in the rock hides that I thought my snake might get stuck in and hurt himself. This was a messy process where I dipped the sphagnum in the epoxy and packed it into the gaps, but it has worked out well.



(before epoxy and rock layering)


(sorry if this one shows up sideways; I can't fix it lol)



(Chico in the non-heated hide)



(heated side overall view)



(non-heated side overall view)



Water:
There is a space in the back right corner for a water dish. I tried to position it so beetles couldn’t fall in; in addition, I put a rock in it so they wouldn’t drown and could climb out if they fell in. I haven’t seen one fall in yet (if they get wet, you can typically tell because some of their powdery coating is missing), but I will leave it like this permanently.

Transitioning into the enclosure:
I moved my Trans-Pecos ratsnake, Chico, into this enclosure in January. I did this gradually, by allowing him a few hours at a time to play in the enclosure while out for his regular explore time. I put one of his hides in there on top of the rocks. After about a week of explore time, where I let him stay in there for longer intervals of time, I let him stay overnight in the enclosure. Then, after a couple more days of explore time, I left him in there (still with his prior hide in case he wanted to use it). After about a week, I took out his old hide.


(I love his face)



Poo:
It dries out so fast in this enclosure. I remove it but if there are little bits of urates etc left over, I mix them in to the soil. I think the beetles do eat the urates? I haven’t seen whether they eat the poop yet, but I would think it would be much too slowly for me to want to leave it in there. This isn’t completely self-cleaning (and no bioactive enclosure is) and wasn’t intended to be.

Soil maintenance:
Several months apart, I think a small amount of my soil mix will need to be added. I judge this by the level of the ollas I can see above the soil, which tends to settle a bit over time. The blue death-feigning beetle larvae and the ollas themselves help prevent compression of the soil (watering top-down will flatten the soil faster, I think, and also I didn’t want surface soil moisture for this species). I plan to fertilize with kelp meal every 3-6 months or so? Bury this under the soil near plants.

Light:
I replaced the fluorescent tube light at the beginning of the year; the prior one had been in use for a little over a year. It hadn’t burnt out yet, but you are supposed to replace them and I thought it was no longer giving off the full daylight spectrum for my plants.

Plants:
The brittlebush (the largest plant previously) is living in a pot on my porch now. The other plants, which were seedings, were moved to more the middle of the setup. When transplanting, it is important to “mud in” the plants: make a hole for the plant; fill the hole with water; put the plant in the hole; put soil around the plant. They will look upset and take more water for about a week (if they look sad, water). I recommend understanding plants if you’re going to do this lol, or try to make sure you don’t need to move them. Normally, you shouldn’t need to move any of the plants unless you have to rearrange something in the enclosure, like I did.

Watering, I only do when a plant looks sad. If I see a SMALL amount of droop in the leaves, I will fill all of the ollas with water (this seems to be less than once per week but I’m honestly not keeping track). I emphasize “small” amount of droop because you don’t want the plants to look like they’re dead before you water.


(My current plants from the desert seed mix. Unsure of the species yet)


Plantless:
I want to emphasized that overwatering would be really damaging to this setup. You can do this setup the exact same way but without plants, if you aren’t sure you want plants. I would recommend occasional (every two weeks or so) water on one side of the enclosure’s soil for the blue death-feigning beetle larvae (dig a divot/hole and fill up with water a few times, allowing it to disappear/drain between)

A special note about captive breeding blue death-feigning beetles:
In January, I saw a beetle that looked a little different; it seemed to have some clay soil on it, so I thought maybe had just dug around a but. I didn’t really investigate until the next day. To my complete shock, this was a new beetle. My blue death-feigning beetles have bred in captivity, without me even trying. I am completely sure this is a new beetle; all of my other beetles (despite me being able to identify them individually because of this), are “imperfect” ones missing limbs and parts of limbs; this new guy is totally “perfect.” The beetle is a little on the smaller side, about the same size as my smallest beetle of the group before it died, and it has a lighter powdery color than the others. After it emerged, it chomped on the shed skin for like a week straight, and is often running around with apparently lots of energy.


(the new guy!)



(new beetle above an existing beetle)


Also, while rearranging the hides (a day or two after I found the new guy), I found an absolute chonker of a larvae (whom I carefully put in a container while messing with the rocks and soil). Hopefully this means I will have another new beetle soon! My tally is still the same, as I did find a dead beetle while rearranging the cage; the number stays at 6 beetles now.



(big larva!)


To recap, all I have done for these beetles is:
- Bury a baby carrot or two in the soil every couple of months
- Feed the beetles vegetable scraps from stuff I cook
- Soil is mainly watered via the ollas and is not ever wet, but is occasionally damp in a smallish area
- I did bury small pieces of (live oak tree) twigs in the soil because I read they need wood to develop as larvae, but I’m really not sure this was needed, and also I would see the twigs come to the surface of the soil and they did not appear to be chewed on at all. There is no other wood in my soil mixture.

For something I could achieve accidentally that was previously made to sound difficult and precise, I now believe there is no good reason why blue death-feigning beetles cannot be captive bred. Hopefully in the future, CB blue death-feigning beetles will be widely available.

Socializing Chico:
Aside from the enclosure aspect, I wanted to make a short mention of my snake’s behavior and training. I followed choice-based handling with him, as he was initially shy and had never seen the outside of a tub his entire life. Following choice-based handling, he was a completely different snake in about a month, and even more of a different snake in three months. My Chico is curious and active and loves to explore. He is less shy about eating in that he will eat within about 5 minutes of me placing food, but still doesn’t understand what tongs are, so I just place the thawed mouse on a target. While we were able to easily target train our Japanese rat snake because he takes food from tongs, Chico will likely take a bit longer in this regard. However, the practical use of targeting (like unforcefully convincing them to exit their enclosure if you need to maintain something in it), has not yet applied to him, as he will freely approach me and come out to see me if I open the cage door for him. He is the least food-motivated animal I have ever seen lol. His personality is great and I’m happy he has learned to trust people and learned that exploring is fun.

In conclusion!:
I hope this series of posts helps anyone trying to make a similar enclosure. Unfortunately I will not likely be checking in to be able to answer any questions—I’ve been off of "reptile social media" because I find it depressing overall—but hopefully I’ve explained my methods enough to help someone hoping to recreate this setup or make something similar.

I’m very happy with this project overall and am glad I took the chance in making a setup that I love, that looks the way I envisioned.