Hey all! I am so excited.
You may remember a while back I said I was collecting all the things I needed for building a bioactive enclosure according the "The Art of Keeping Snakes" By Philippe de vosjoli for my lil' Josephine.
Well it's done and Jo was moved there tonight!
I learned a lot. One being to quarantine PLANTS for a MONTH as some I bought at the home depot had mealy bugs and some other weird sap sucking nasty! Another was, if sterilizing branches in a oven, wrap the ends in tin foil or else they start to smoke and brown. Third, peat takes FOREVER to dry. I had this done days ago. I was trying to dry out the top 1/3 before introducing her.
The design was a fun, very organic process, allowing for shifts and new ideas to direct the finished product. I was going for increased surface area, multiple hides, many temperature gradients, variety in ground heights, and a jungle gym, (branches with multiple branches.) She's still quite small and light but when she gets bigger, these will need to be replaced by thicker ones.
Kathy Love suggested a Wandering Jew Plant (thanks, looks faboo!) and I put a bromelaide of some kind in there. There is a gro-light to assist their ability to adapt to conditions in the viv. Those are silver maple branches, rocks from the area, and a few from trips out east.
So all I have to do is mist daily, water and stir weekly, take poo out as needed, restructure and wash glass monthly. Much less work actually, or at least work of a 'funner' nature.
I hope these pics convey how happy Jo seems to be and how much fun I had doing it. I took a lot of pics but they duidn't turn out well.
She has spent the last hour and a half roaming around, in and out, over, under, examining every nook and cranny. Of course, I build all these elaborate hides and multi-level descending rock/simulated cliff surfaces and where does she stop for the last 15 minutes? In the back of the viv, on the substrate, out in the open!
The pics are of
- warm hide (rock) back right
- overall viv
- cool hide (wood log) front left
- and Jo in branches.
Well. Now just to wait and see what she destroys. She's already making path ways in the dirt. Little snake highways. How cute!
You may remember a while back I said I was collecting all the things I needed for building a bioactive enclosure according the "The Art of Keeping Snakes" By Philippe de vosjoli for my lil' Josephine.
Well it's done and Jo was moved there tonight!
I learned a lot. One being to quarantine PLANTS for a MONTH as some I bought at the home depot had mealy bugs and some other weird sap sucking nasty! Another was, if sterilizing branches in a oven, wrap the ends in tin foil or else they start to smoke and brown. Third, peat takes FOREVER to dry. I had this done days ago. I was trying to dry out the top 1/3 before introducing her.
The design was a fun, very organic process, allowing for shifts and new ideas to direct the finished product. I was going for increased surface area, multiple hides, many temperature gradients, variety in ground heights, and a jungle gym, (branches with multiple branches.) She's still quite small and light but when she gets bigger, these will need to be replaced by thicker ones.
Kathy Love suggested a Wandering Jew Plant (thanks, looks faboo!) and I put a bromelaide of some kind in there. There is a gro-light to assist their ability to adapt to conditions in the viv. Those are silver maple branches, rocks from the area, and a few from trips out east.
So all I have to do is mist daily, water and stir weekly, take poo out as needed, restructure and wash glass monthly. Much less work actually, or at least work of a 'funner' nature.
I hope these pics convey how happy Jo seems to be and how much fun I had doing it. I took a lot of pics but they duidn't turn out well.
She has spent the last hour and a half roaming around, in and out, over, under, examining every nook and cranny. Of course, I build all these elaborate hides and multi-level descending rock/simulated cliff surfaces and where does she stop for the last 15 minutes? In the back of the viv, on the substrate, out in the open!
The pics are of
- warm hide (rock) back right
- overall viv
- cool hide (wood log) front left
- and Jo in branches.
Well. Now just to wait and see what she destroys. She's already making path ways in the dirt. Little snake highways. How cute!
