Rich Crowley

Happiness!

Keeping your herps clean and healthy is key to longevity. After years of rescue and seeing the general LACK of quality care some people afford their animals, I realize you can only turn improve their life so much. The truth is the long term effects of poor sanitation are still unknown. However, preventative care avoids testing this theory.

Winter is coming and for the people in certain states, its already here. When winter arrives, its time to prepare for changes in the home environment to help avoid health problems with our herps. Winter is notoriously dry as forced-air heat dries out the already dry winter air. Some homes experiencing single digit humidity that saps the humidity out of everything from your wood floors to your tropical herps cage. This is a critical time of year when cold drafts and low humity work to make your animals suffer respiratory distress leading to infection and illness. So what do you do to prevent this? Isolate your herps to a room that you can control the humidty with a good humidifier. Change the filter in the humidifier using the manufacturers instructions to avoid bacteria build up. If you cannot do that, then increase the water bowl and spray the cage periodically (daily mostly). There are great misting and fogging systems for smaller cages. Avoid soggy cages that can also lead to mold and fungus.

Also, drafts happen in our older homes dropping temps in the house below level too low for the cage heaters to keep up with. Don't just rely on your remote thermometers. Use infrared thermometers to scan the various temp ranges of your enclosures. Be aware that cages close to walls, windows and concrete floors can be 10-20 degrees lower than other cages connected to a cetnral thermostat. Increasing basking lights helps increase day time temps or using a larger under tank heater. Incandescent lighting will reduce the humidity so you need to compensate.

For years, I have worked with adoptions and rescue of herps and often hear from the owners "it was too much", "my kid went to college and we don't have time to care for it....", etc. I look back at myself over these years and the state of my collection and others I know well with similarly large collections and wonder how we can do it and others can't or won't? Like anything else, it takes passion and commitment. I always joke with my non-herper friends that if you want a solid relationship, marry a herper! Though I have had herps my whole life, it was within the last nearly 20 years that I can claim to having a sizable personal collection. Those who know me know that I don't chince on my collection. A drug problem would be cheaper! But it gives me the satisfaction of know I am providing care for an animal or animals to allow them the ability to enjoy the best of their natural life cycle. To me the gauge of any being's quality of life is directly related to their overall physical health, including amount of stress as exhibited by their behavior and ability to reproduce periodically healthy offspring with out adverse effects to their own well being. Is this anthropomorphic? Maybe, but its the most understandable perspective I have.

It takes commitment, resources and cooperation. Commitment by you and your family over the duration often spanning decades. Dick Bartlett just posted on Facebook keeping a tortoise for some 60 yrs, that's commitment. Not everyone can provide that commitment and when life deals out challenges, a responsible owner acts accordingly. You seek out the best substitute for you. Whether a friend, a collegue or through local herp society or rescue group. Resources of course are needed in both time and money. Another resource often overlooked by novice keepers is fellow herpers either within your own family or herp societies. These fellow enthusiasts not only have the resources of knowledge and experience, but also physical assistance. Ever try going on a honeymoon or vacation with a large collection? How about selling and moving to a new house? What happens if you get sick or injured for a spell? Fellow herpers are more than they appear. Cooperation? It relates to your fellow herpers, but also to your family and funny as it sounds, your herps. Working with aggressive or dangerous animals may be thrilling at times, but what about routine maintenance? Moving a large snake every week or two to clean the cage is often challenging enough, but a fiesty or aggressive one makes it difficult. To address those unwanted behaviors zoos look to condition animals to certain activities to make it minimally stressful and often times fun. You can do this to some extent with herps. I routinely work with many of my snakes to hold their head and pull back their lips to examine their mouth. Over years, many will let me do this in public so people can see their teeth. You may not be able to do this with everyone, but it is an example of the conditioning that can be adapted for routine maintenance. I even had a monitor that would open his mouth using hand gesture so he would let me see inside. I am sure his incentive was to also close it on me, but we never tested that side :)

For newbies who wish to get into keeping any larger species of snake, the following was created and used to share with others to avoid common mistakes made when keeping large snakes. A recent story by a fellow rescuer with the Chicago Herp Society reminded me of this paper I created a few years ago(and a little encouragement by another CHS member).

Rules to Live by when Keeping Large Constricting Snakes

That really is the question at least these days....