Reptile Fight Club - Minimum cage size requirements with Chris Chaffin

Episode Date: April 29, 2023

Justin and Chuck tackle the most controversial topics in herpetoculture. The co-hosts or guests take one side of the issue and try to hold their own in a no-holds-barred contest of intellect. Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of minimum cage size requirements with Chris Chaffin Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

welcome to another episode of reptile fight club so uh, today we got a good show for you. We're going to be having a fun discussion with Chris Chaffin, so topic that he suggested. But, yeah, we'll kind of kick it off with a little chit-chat, assuming Ruby can quiet down there. I think I'm good. You're back. Oh, my gosh.

Apologies. No worries, no worries. What's going on with you, man? Not much. That was a long sigh there. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, there's always a lot going on. Busy, you know um but good busy uh did you know starting to feed outdoor stuff i i uh i got that clot i got the the eggs out of the coastal female again this year so i put them in

the incubator i saw that yeah so so that was kind of cool. Um, that's great. Yeah. So I, I, I don't want to jinx anything else. So I like just not saying anything else. Nice. Yeah. That's, uh, that's cool though. I'm, I'm excited for, to see how things go for your, your other outdoor critters. But I got another clutch of eggs. Children's pythons. Nice. Those are incubating. Not a bad clutch.

But from an older female. I think she was born in the 2000s at some point. I can't remember the exact date. Went out and checked out Lucas's band. Lucas Lee. He was playing, uh, in Salt Lake and we went down, uh, to Salt Lake for a lacrosse game. You know, it's like a, an hour and a half, two hour drive for us. And then, um, we stayed, you know, Heidi and I got some dinner. It was nice to have just me and her, uh, after the game and, uh and uh and and then checked out lucas's band it was they were

great like really good uh good music so check out finish ticket if you're uh interested to see to hear uh lucas lee's uh i guess it's not his band but he's in the band helping him out uh for their tour dates. But, yeah, it was really fun to watch him in his element. It's a nice small venue. It's always kind of cool when it's so small. But, yeah, check them out if they're in your area. And then I don't know what else is going on. Oh, Lucas defended his master's thesis.

So he passed with flying colors. He's the latest masters of, I think it's zoo science. I forgive me if I'm wrong there, but under Zach Lofman. So another one completed. The only one, the only other one I know of his students is Casey Cannon. He's in the middle of his degree as well. So kind of cool. But, yeah, good stuff.

Nice. Getting nice. It's good. The blackhead eggs are still going strong, so knock on wood, hopefully another month or so, and we'll start seeing some babies hatch out of there. That would be nice. That would be hatch out of there that would be nice that would be nice moved a bunch of

inlands last week so making my way down to the last of the inlands so and they sure went quick and there's still quite a few people that are anxious to get some I apologize that the supply did not match the demand this year

and hopefully have some more coming up yeah i i don't know i think it's a kind of a mixed product of uh people figuring out how cool they are you know being able to maybe see one in person um here and you know people like eric and owen talk about them and that kind of thing i think that definitely gets the word out but they're they're one of the cooler carpets for sure they are definitely are i mean it i don't really think they've changed that much in price and price. You know, it's a good, it's a good, I don't know, I like them.

I like them. Yeah, they're cool. I got that one pair from you a while back. That was, that was nice

to have those from you. They were all primed and ready to go and spread right off the bat there. Man, I'm a little out of it. I had some dental work done today, so that was not fun. I didn't expect to come out of there missing a limb. Was it from pain all of a sudden?

You're just like, oh my gosh, I've got to go in? Yeah. from like pain all of a sudden you're just like, Oh my gosh, I got to go in or. Yeah. Like it. Well, that was a couple months ago, but I was too busy of course to go into the dentist. So I've just been living with a crown. So be honest. Did you know this moment was coming and you just kind of been putting it off or were you genuinely caught by surprise i i suspected but i wasn't sure because it hurt you know for for a bit before i left for france and then um it kind

of stopped like it so you were good all through but i well i still couldn't like chew very well on that side so i was kind of favoring the other side which is okay not a good sign you know so I suspected something was wrong but then I thought he'd just kind of pop off the crown maybe I don't know do something fill something in there and then put it back on but no he crunched it out and smashed it up it was my crown with the Australia uh painted on it so it's kind of cool it It's sad to lose that. I guess that matches my broken trips to Australia this year. Ouch!

My goodness. Yeah. My goodness. It's expensive to get over there. And those tickets are about double the price or more. So kind of crazy. But so if I'm talking funny or you hear me lispingping a lot that's uh

that's just us that's just us no you sound fantastic oh man i work is finally slowing down a little bit and i can catch up a bit got a new computer though and that's never fun to try to migrate everything over and get the new one functioning like the old one did. So still having a little bit of hiccups and headaches with that. But what do you do? You go to a cloud-based server. Yeah. Well, that's most of my stuff is on the cloud, but it was being problematic accessing the cloud with the program we use. But I think I've got everything worked out. I don't know.

Macs are fun, but they can be a pain in the neck sometimes. Did you have to call some people, have them do some things? Fortunately, not yet. Our IT guy, he's an interesting character but he'll come and just you know spend a good hour chatting with you you know and then spend two minutes fixing your problem so you got to kind of plan so i got you he's a great he's a really nice guy like he's yeah but just yeah he's he seems to have a lot of time on his hands. How does one do this job? Not a bad gig.

I like that. Yeah, but I do like the guy. Yeah, and I say good for him. That's awesome. Should have gone into IT, I guess. I enjoy the science, though. It's been fun. I don't know.

I've got a master's student, uh, defending next week. So getting another student out there. She's, she's got a spot in, uh, North Carolina to finish out a PhD. So she's really sharp, sharp gal. So it'll be, be fun, uh, to have, well, not going to be fun to have her gone because she does really good work. So it's going to kind of suck to lose her. But what do you do? Yeah. All the best and brightest leave. Maybe we'll get her back here someday.

She's native to the area. Hopefully that's how institutions of higher learning work though. Yeah. You got to get them out of there at some point. Yeah. Yeah. And she's, I mean, she thought she was going to have to do another semester. I'm like, Oh no, no, you're, you're good. You're solid. You did, you did a lot of work and she got a lot of good work done in a short amount of time. So, and her project worked. I mean, she mean she found she she found out what she was looking for so yeah wasn't sweet at all yeah sweet yep well uh trying to think if there's anything else going on in the world of reptiles uh rob sent me a message over with a weird blue tongue. It's over in Ireland or England, somewhere over there, in a pet shop.

And it's like this, you know, like a luchistic-looking Maruki blue tongue or something. So, kind of interesting what's out there. He's like, you know, what do you think of this? I'm like, man, it looks white. I don't know white I don't know I don't know I don't pay you keep too close tabs on the blue tongue

market or morphs or whatever but yeah I don't know it's always good to chat with with Rob Bob Brock Bobby Pebbles. He's got much more experience in that area than I do.

He's a wealth of knowledge, that guy, old Bobby Pebbles. Indeed. I still think that's my favorite nickname from Schmitty. Bobby Pebbles. Makes me laugh every time I hear it. Alright. Nice. Without further ado,

let's get into our topic here, I guess. Chris, thanks for joining us. You there? I can see he's on, but I can't hear him. I thought we were good with the no issues. He came on, we could hear him and chat with him and see him, but his picture went away and now we can't hear him. He might have to drop out and come back in or something. So yeah, we've got with us Chris Chaffin from Copperhead Reptilia. At least we had him with us.

Hopefully he's with us. Yeah, he's still here. I can see the mute button going off and on. He's putting in work. He's putting in his best effort whatever's going on over there yeah not sure uh what's happening on yeah we were we were definitely doing better here like yeah five ten minutes ago yeah um so uh chris is from copperhead reptilia so he uh reached out to us on uh instagram and had an idea for a topic so I thought we'd have him come on and debate it

so I'm excited to hear his take on this on this topic but I want to wait until he's back with us to try it out to chat about it hmm well, maybe we'll give him a minute to chat about it. Hmm. Well, maybe we'll give them a minute to figure out the technical issues.

Talk about, I don't know, are you listening to anything good in the reptile world lately? Not so much, huh? Man, that's bad. Yeah, I haven't, I just got too much going on. I'm trying to take care of my projects right now and just be successful on multiple fronts and just taking my time.

And then new job stuff. I know how that goes. You have a commute, though, don't you? Do you not do podcasts on your commute? I mean, I listen to music i just don't find you know like i don't know man like i guess maybe leaving work i can listen to podcasts but going to work i don't i don't know why i don't i don't i think i prefer to listen to music on the way to work. Yeah.

I get on kicks. I was listening to music today. I did listen to a little bit of a podcast. Eric and Owen NPR did a couple of cool episodes recently. They did Herp History with, oh, man, now, her history, um, with, uh, oh man. Now, of course I'm going to blank on the name, um, Trumbauer, Craig Trumbauer. I believe that's who it was. That was a good one. Yeah. He did a great recovery. I've been catching up on some of the shows of our, or I don't know. It's really great hearing,

hearing the stories from the old, you know, the, I won't, I won't say old guys, but the, the pioneers, you know,

the ones who have been around for a while and been doing this their whole lives. So that was cool to hear stories. And it kind of, it's my favorite. I think that's probably one of more of my favorite things is hanging out with kind of old school guys and listen and just tell stories about stuff. It's kind of fun.

Kind of sparked my interest in reconnecting with some of those pioneer guys in my life. So I reached out to Louis Porras, who was he started Zoo Herp. He moved from Florida to Utah and started zoo herp out here. And I remember as like a teenager going to his shop and just my jaw would hit the floor. They had so much cool stuff there. And then he was just a really cool guy. He would take me into the venomous room. I think even though he wasn't supposed to, you know, let me check out everything. He'd like, just a minute, let me make sure everything's in its cages you know because and and he just had just an incredible collection and i mean it was just like sky's the limit there you know and yeah and so i reached out to him and he responded he remembered me it was pretty cool

but he hadn't made the connection that i was that you know dorky kid coming into a shop versus uh you know me now uh with, the guy who wrote, wrote a couple of books. So he's like, Oh, that's cool to make that connection, you know, kind of put the two pieces together. I'm like, Oh, if you're ever, ever want to go out herp. And he's like, well, I'm in my seventies. I don't make it out too much.

What? How did, how did I age? But you, and you aged as well. Like I thought you'd just be the same age as you were when I was a kid, you know? So, Oh my God. That's awesome.

But yeah, he sent me a bunch of articles and we've just kind of been, uh, conversing back and forth on, on email. So that's cool. It's been cool to reconnect. Yeah.

But where we're going out looking for con color, he kind of did a lot of work with Con Color, and there was a cool Reptiles article that he published with him and Gary. Gary? Yeah. I can't help you. Who's the jungle? Shewitt.

Gordon. Oh, Gordon Shewitt. Yeah, who we met. Yeah, we met. Yeah. Hey. There we go we go okay sorry about that no worries I hear an echo though

echo sorry the headphone is having a bit of an issue okay I only hear it when we talk not when you talk so maybe that'll work out okay maybe if you're not talking you talk, so maybe that'll work out. Okay. Maybe if you're not talking, you can mute and then it won't echo. But, yeah.

All right. Sorry, I'm fooling around with the blue. Oh. Something happened there. I don't know. Just when you think you're okay with the technical issues, you're right back in it. That's all right.

But, yeah, kind of reconnecting with him, hearing those stories, getting some remembering his stories with the con color, the midget fader rattlesnakes and stuff. So that was really cool. Oh, can you hear me now? Yeah. Yeah.

No way. Okay. Sorry. The, I have no idea what happened. It wigged out and was, it was connected, but no sound was coming out or going in.

Oh really? Yeah. No. Well, we got you now. So that, that's good. Sorry about that.

Oh, no worries. No worries. It's how it goes. We're used to this, I good. Sorry about that. Oh, no worries, no worries. It's how it goes. We're used to this, I guess. So you can't have it too perfect or just get too comfortable, right? I was going to say, you can edit that out, right? Well, welcome to the show, Chris.

Thanks for being here. Why don't you kind of tell us how you fit in herpetoculture and what you do? So I think I've got that pretty typical origin story, like most people, you know, obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid. And then, you know, I grew up in the Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin area or era. So, you know, always watching that all day long. Had the stereotypical like seven-year-old kid the 10 gal and the garter snake and actually kept it alive for a while before it died in brumation but um then you know at 10 my parents decided to get me a ball python um which you had supportive parents that sound you know you don't hear that too often like I have the same thing, just really supportive parents.

Yeah, I was really lucky. It was one of those things where the snake was 14 at the time. I still have him. He actually turns 30 today. I have his actual hatch date. Oh, nice. I've had him this whole time. And one of those things like, you know, parents always very supportive at times.

I think they kind of regret that now that they know what my life has turned into. But, you know, tried to do the whole, you know, as far as the hobby goes, tried to do the whole, you know, get into morphs and breeding getting into some of that stuff realizing not really my thing but i just i really enjoy keeping um and even more so i just i really enjoy as i like to call them dirt snakes i like the little brown things you know um diadem snake rubber boa things like that so yeah keep a little bit of everything so yeah no i like that i like it when you know people that find their own niche and or nipper and kind of go after that that's cool yeah very nice um all right well uh so you had the idea to discuss minimum cage sizes and and kind of those recommendations that are out there and kind of the moving

target, I guess, if you will. So we'll talk about the pros and cons of having minimum cage size recommendations. So yeah, let's get into it and go ahead and do a coin flip here. So Chuck and I will flip the coin to see who gets to debate you so go ahead and call that one and what the hell was that that's uh that's heads it's tails oh i apologize about that well um i'm i'm feeling all right my tooth's not bugging me too bad, so maybe I'll go with this one. That's all right with you, yeah. No, I... Okay, and then now we'll flip, and Chris, you can call this one to see what side you get.

Ooh, let's go tails. Tails. It's tails again, so you win that toss. So I'll let you pick your side and whether you want to go first or or let me go first um i'm trying to what would be the best way to word the side for this one um if if you think you know giving uh minimum cage size requirements is is a good thing or not so great i i'll take the i'll be be the devil's advocate and I'll say that a minimum size is a bad thing. Okay.

Okay. And I'll go with that it's good to have that recommendation. Okay. Well, do you want to lead us off or do you want me to? I'll let you go first. You're going to chuck me, huh? Yep. All right.

Okay. I'll let you go first. You're going to chuck me, huh? Yep. All right. Okay, well, so when you're keeping reptiles, you need some kind of standard, something to measure off of. And I think that varies, and it has varied from time to time. But I do think that it's a good thing to give people from time to time. And, and, uh, but I, I do think that it's, it's, it's a good thing to give people a place to start, you know? And so we've, we've got a lot of, uh, information out there on different reptiles and care sheets and things like that. And, and a lot of time it is left to the keeper to decide what they, what they want to do. And I think a lot of people probably keep smaller than what's recommended and, and things like that. But I guess I think people, it's human nature to kind of want some direction and some, you know, starting points at least. And so you might fudge it a little and

be like, okay, they recommend, you know, four by two cage and I've got a four by 18 inch cage. And so I'm going to go with that. And, and then you keep them and you're like, okay, this is working out pretty good. Or you're like, well, they seem a little cramped or they're trying, always trying to move or they're always rubbing their nose. And so I'm going to go up. So I think, uh, you know, as long as people are, are cognizant that that might change or that might be different depending on maybe the individual animal or the different species you keep or the person who wrote the care sheet.

You know, sometimes we, we get into those kinds of things and we look back and we're like, man, this was some bad advice on that care sheet. So I'm going to change that up. So I think as long as people are willing to be a student of the serpent, as the podfather would say, that we can be okay with those cage size requirements. And

they're definitely a reasonable jumping off point for most keep, and a lot of, at least the commonly kept species out there. So I, I think I'd start out that way. Yeah. And I would say, I, I agree with you on a lot of that. Um, as far as I think it's a great jumping off point, you know, um, because as far as that goes, you know, like using, we'll use ball pythons because they're just the ugly redheaded stepchild. The 4x2x2 is a really, really common suggestion that I see. Now, kind of where I come with the against portion, so to speak, is where I think when you go to these care guides online and you see that they say minimum for a ball python is the four by two by two, they're leaving out a lot of different aspects of the growth portion of that animal's life.

They're leaving out a lot of different things where I think kind of like you said, student of the serpent. Um, I am a big believer that everything in herpetoculture has a spectrum, whether that is the individual animal having some kind of a special reason why it may need a smaller environment, whether that that animal is in kind of like a growth phase of its life where, you know, it's kind of becoming the norm where you will go onto these Facebook groups and you see, you know, baby corn snake, what's my, what size enclosure do you recommend? And people instantly say, Oh, it needs a four by two by two. Well, I, I'm pretty sure we all know if you take that little bitty baby hatchling corn snake shoved in a four by two, it's going to have some issues, you know? So I think that even though those minimums are

really great, people also need to remember that there's, there's that growth stage where they don't need a four by two, where maybe it is appropriate to have an animal in, let's say, a 20 gallon, a 40 gallon, a 60 gallon, something smaller may be appropriate for that point in the animal's life. You know? Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's a good point. Um, we're getting a little bit of feedback. I'm not sure you just hearing a little, uh, uh, feedback from your, not feedback, but like kind of a, what's the, what's the word static. Yeah. Static from, uh, from your input, but hopefully that'll go away. Okay. Ah, still there, but anyway, I'll, I'll kind of move on to the, yeah, I'll, I'll address what you said there. Um, I think, um, you know, what I can see is, you know, if you,

if you're recommending, and I, and I agree, you know, you don't need to keep a juvenile or hatchling snake in its eventual full size enclosure and it would probably fare poorly, like you said. But I think people need to have that, you know, at least have the resources or have a plan for getting that eventual size. Because I think a lot of times people think, well, it's small now, I can house it now. And then they, you know, so they buy that baby reticulated python thinking I can keep it in a four by two and then, you know, it's 12 feet long and they're scrambling to figure out how to cage it. And so I think if you have that adult size cage size requirement or recommendation from the get go, then they can be they can have that in mind saying, OK, I need this cage down the road.

And if if I don't, you know, if people don't consider that and they think, well, I've got time, I'll just get this and put it in a 20 gallon now. And then down the road, I'll be able to make that room size enclosure that usually doesn't happen. And they're usually trying to rehome that retake after a few years because they grow so quickly. So I think, um, letting people know from the get go, this is what the size will be. And this is the, and you know, anytime I think a, a breeder will justify and say, well, yeah, just as long as down the road, you'll be able to do that. You have to make that clear. You need this in what, two years or one year, you know, you're going to have to have this eight or 12 foot cage for your reticulated Python or whatever, you know, the minimum size would be

for retic. I don't know. That's very difficult, but I think, you know, folks like Barczyk, you know, showing his big, he used to keep those in, you know, the tubs and very small enclosures. I mean, you know, maybe he'd get them out and they'd move around and maybe they're okay. But, you know, long term, that tub is not a great idea. But I think, you know, so many people saw that old school, you know, here you can keep a million snakes as long as you have all these tubs, you know. And so people think, oh, Barchet got it to work. I can do that. Now he's shifted since and opened up his reptile zoo. And now he has a room size enclosure for his, you know, reticulated python.

He's got trees for it to climb. You know, it's a good, what, eight, 12 foot cage tall. And then, you know, fairly good size inside. He's got water elements and trees. And so, you know, that's more like along the lines of what we should be saying. Okay, here's what this snake really needs. And that's probably a little small for it, you know, to be, but maybe not, maybe they don't need that, you know, room size, but, you know, just giving people

that idea that this is important, that they be able to perform their natural life functions in our care. And we give them as big as we can can rather than, I think a lot of times people focus on that minimum size requirement and think that's the optimum size and it may or may not be, you know, you might do better with a smaller cage, like you said, or it might be bigger, but at least it kind of gives you that idea of what you'll need for that animal for the longterm. And that's key. I think a lot of times we gloss over that in, in favor of getting the animal now, um, we'll get it now and then worry about that. That's future Justin's problem to worry about how I'm going to keep that snake, you know? And so, and I think we all get into that problem at one point or another in our

keeping careers. I don't know if anybody's ever kept everything they've ever owned optimally, you know, or, or as, as good as the, the minimum size requirements suggest, but, um, it's good to have that on the forefront of your mind when you get the animal. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's really important to go into any animal kind of thinking, like you said, thinking that two, three, four, five years down the line, thinking about how big they're going to get. For the sake of the argument, I feel the need to say I am not like a rack or a tub keeper. I am someone who generally does try to keep in larger than is needed for that point in their life. But I think part of the issue that we have is that we reach a point where, even though, like, 4x2x2, for example, just to spit out a number,

is considered a really good minimum for, like, a lot of species, there are certain places where you'll go and you'll see, like, for example, a Brettles Python, the cage requirement from some of these really popular, um, you know, um, influencers, let's say is they're recommending eight by seven by four as a minimum for a Brettles Python, which if you ask me i mean i have a brettles granted he's not full grown but at the same time 8x7x4 is a room-sized enclosure that's i'm sure thousands of dollars to buy that enclosure now we're now granted a brettles is not you know an entry-level animal like a corn snake, a king snake, a leopard gecko. But at what point are the standards that we are requiring becoming preventative for people entering the hobby?

You know, so like if you I mean, I, you know, I've listened to you guys talk on podcasts before, and I'm sure a lot of us started keeping housing for your animal is, you know, the four by two by two, the thermostat, the mist king, the all the bells and whistles, which I don't think anyone here will say that's a bad thing to have. I think we would all agree that those are net positives as a whole but it's still preventative to people if it is um what is it if the entry level for keeping a normal ball python is a 1200 investment altogether you know what i mean and we're at a point in the hobby where i feel like you know we have thousands and thousands of animals available at any time. And unfortunately, they're not all going to go into that four by two setup that is ideal. We know that and it's unfortunately part of what is going to happen. If people want the animal, they're going to get it regardless. But I think that there is a very massive disconnect between the rack keeping

side of the hobby and then the so advanced that even a zoo won't meet those standards side of the hobby. And I think there's this entire gray area in the middle of is, you know, let's say is a 70 gallon ideal for a ball python? No. But would I rather see a ball python in a 70 gallon than a shoebox sized rack? Absolutely. You know what I mean? And so that's kind of where I come at from a lot of what I'm seeing, especially with a lot of the influencers pushing on to, you know, new people into the hobby that this is what you have to have for it to be humane, which it's, it's progressing the husbandry, which is a net positive. But I still think that at times the barrier to entry is almost getting

set so high now that it is preventative to new people coming into the hobby. Yeah, I would agree with, you know, with that in large part. I think as we, you know, you wonder how many of those recommendations or changes are reflecting, you know, the overall health of the animal. I think, you know, a lot of times when we say minimum cage size, you know, what is that minimum for? Is that minimum just to have them survive or to, you know, have them be restrained or something? Yeah. Or is it to have them thrive? And I think anytime you're trying to replicate a natural environment in a box, you're going to fall short, you know. So I think if you're concerned about the welfare of the animal and you can see it doing natural things. I mean, I always got a kick out of people calling arboreal cages that were two feet high, you know, arboreal cages, anything

that's arboreal is probably at least up 15, 20 feet in the air, you know, and, and to, to, to suggest that a two foot or three foot or even four foot tall cage is arboreal is kind of laughable, right? I mean, nobody would consider that a tree, uh, enclosure unless you've got a room, you know, a 20 foot tall room with a tree growing in the middle of it or something, you know, that kind of thing. So, I mean, obviously we have to shortchange the animal a little bit for what it's getting in the wild. But I think, you know, pythons are a great example of that is pythons in the wild don't move a ton you know they they might move between shelter sites or between where they're setting up to feed but i think that's kind of born out of necessity um i i always wonder this because there was a study done on on um a darwin carpet python that they radio tracked this individual and they found it in the same

tree hollow for over a year. And so the thing just sat in this tree hollow. And I assume that, you know, prey was coming to it. Maybe it left and came back when the researchers weren't tracking it, but they got a lot of fixes on this animal and it was always in that same tree hollow. So, you know, would they, do they need to move? That was, that's always been a question of mine. I need to have some kind of physiologist on here to discuss this with if, if pythons actually need to exercise or move around. Now, I think, you know, we can balance that out if, if we're not overfeeding the animal. And I think most captive pythons are overfed. Most captive reptiles are overfed, you know, their reptiles are very good at, uh, being efficient, you know, compared to mammals at least. But, you know, of course,

some species like, you know, like a bearded dragon or other lizards have a more high metabolism and need to be fed more frequently and need to be kept in larger cages so they can move around um yeah it's it's uh i mean we we've got to take that into consideration that when we're trying to replicate nature in a box we're gonna fall short but can you get those necessary things from their natural history to keep them happy and healthy and thriving as best we can in that environment? And I think, you know, for most species, we can meet that need. And, you know, it's been proven over time that these animals do pretty well in our care, especially brettles pythons. I mean, if you look on Morph Market and the

carpet python section, more brettles carpets are available than most other species or subspecies. Now, I think people have in their minds that brettles pythons or Centralian carpets are an 8-foot species. But in a lot of studies that have been done that the average size is around six feet so they're not much bigger than a jungle carpet or you know an average coastal carpet we have that maximum size in our minds too like this thing will get eight or ten you know nine ten feet or something like that when

that's not necessarily the case. Of course, you can get them to that size, but an average size of six foot suggests that, you know, once they hit that six foot mark, they're going to slow their growth. That's going to be close to their adult size. And, uh, does that mean we shouldn't plan for a, you know, an eight foot snake, you know, maybe, maybe that's something that we should keep in mind. And we have that size so the snake can stretch fully out. That's kind of one of the, the recommendations they use in the zoo. You know, if your animal can stretch fully out, so their cage requirement size is for,

for, you know, that length that they can stretch out comfortably in their enclosure, not have to be wrapped around, you know, in some way. But, and two, I think we maybe underutilize space in our enclosures. If we have big enclosures, there's a lot of dead, empty airspace. Now, if this was a, like a fish tank, you'd have, you know, them using every, every bit of where the water is in our enclosures. We have to keep that in mind, give them, you know, shelves or branches or things to climb around on, especially for a Centralian carpa that could probably be considered largely arboreal in nature. You know, they're generally found in trees in the wild or up on rock faces or cliffs or something. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think a really big part of it too, um, I forget which podcast it was on, but they were talking about how, when you're thinking about the enclosure

size, really breaking down the volume of space that the snake takes up in that enclosure. Like, you know, I've got a rubber boa that lives in a sterilite box, you know, and I could fit probably 50 to 100 of him in this little bitty five gallon box because he's just, you know, so tiny. But at the same time, if I take my blood python and try and put her in the same box, she's going to fill it up one time you know so i think part of it as well is going into you know how much space does that animal really have in the enclosure but also kind of like you were saying the how well are we using that space in the enclosure because so often i've had people even to myself tell me,

Oh, you should really aspire for the setup I have. And then I'm like, okay, let me see the setup. They show you the setup and it's a four by two by two for a bearded dragon. And not a single thing in that cage goes more than six inches off the ground. It's got 18 inches of height with nothing going on. And as far as I'm concerned, I would so much rather see a beardy in a you know a 60 a 70 gallon that is tiered is well decorated it can climb it can

actually get some height over having granted the increased floor space of the four by two but only being able to get five six six inches off the ground, you know? So I think there's a, that, but then also the other thing kind of, uh, going back a little bit that I think a lot of people need to take into account is a snake is not a snake is not a snake. You know what I mean? There's so much variation between individuals within a species, but also just obviously between the species themselves. So to say that, you know, I've had so often people

try and, you know, blanket, well, oh, there's no such thing as a large rack that could be, you know, that would be usable for a snake. And, you know, there are so many fossorial species that would really, that could thrive in that kind of an environment or in a, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? There's just different setups that will benefit different animals in different ways. And I think that as a whole, herpetoculture needs to be a little bit more accepting of that. You know what I mean? I think that the point that there's always an exception to the rule, you know what I mean? Rubber boa is a primary example because they spend most of their life in a fossorial underground environment. They're only out on the surface maybe a couple months out of the year. The rest of the time they're down probably deep within cracks and under the surface of the earth.

I served on Lucas Lee's committee, So I was there for his defense and he was talking about WOMAs and, you know, mentioning the the research by Dr. Melissa Bruton on WOMAs in the wild and, you know, in radio track studies, they found them in burrows 70 percent of the time. And so, you know, I asked Lucas, like, how would you replicate that in a captive setting? You know, if, if, if you were expecting this animal to be in a burrow with, you know, maybe 90% humidity, 70% of the time, you know, a lot of people think, oh, womas are desert pythons. They need a desert environment. And so you've got to, you know, like you said, like just the cage floor and a layer of sand and okay, they're good. Give them a hot spot and they're good to go. But where, you know, if we learn about their natural history, we know that

they need a burrow and they need, you know, a humid hide or if you want to call it that. So, and I was thinking, how can I improve my womas, you know, how I'm keeping them. And, uh, you know, I've got some, some ideas, but like maybe the majority of your cage be set up similar to a burrow or give them options to move down underground. I, I, uh, remember talking with Frank Reedy, Reeds, uh, Reedy's, however he pronounced his last name, Reeds. But he was famous for kind of revolutionizing monitor keeping and keeping a bunch of different monitors. But he kept a lot of snakes before he kept monitors like king snakes and things like that. And he did really well with those. But he was telling me that he built a cage for a king snake that was basically uh kind of a cage on top of a garbage can and the animals could go down

the whole you know the length the garbage can was kind of filled with different rocks and and and sticks and and things so the animals could move down through the cracks between the rocks and sticks all the way down to the bottom and you know back up again and he said they spent the majority of their time in that subterranean environment now that's not very fun to if you're a keeper with a big cage you want to be able to see your animal and and so that kind of you know goes against what we're trying to accomplish if we're looking to replicate their natural environment, which is, you know, of course, the big challenge with fossorial species is how am I going to see this thing if I give it what it needs in a cage? And so I think a lot of times those recommendations of cage sizes don't take those factors into account, especially for the, you know, specific needs of the animals.

So, I mean, you know, I think that's something we need to think of and that probably needs to be a part of those minimum recommendations, but I think we need some, also some bright minds to kind of figure out how to provide that. I know in zoos, I've seen like they use a pane of glass and they have, you know, soil underneath that. So like a rubber boa can go under that pane of glass and get the security and micro environment that it needs while also being visible to the public who can see it through the glass pane and, you know, see what a rubber boa looks like doing what it does naturally, you know, sitting under a rock most of the year. So, you know, and how, how to, how to, uh, improve that, you know, I think we could improve our, um, care sheets and, and minimum cage. And, and I guess we also need to think of minimum needs for the animal and what what it's going to need to to do well and and kind of have what it might have in the wild and is as good as we can provide that in a box yeah and i definitely think that kind of going back a little bit

like you were saying kind of just taking the natural history of the species into account like i don't think anyone in their right mind would ever keep a crebo or an indigo snake in a tub i mean there's just there's so many reasons why doing something like that would be incredibly inhumane but kind of like you're saying there needs to be some acceptance within the community that with some species like rubber boa calabars rosy boas that that is acceptable and that there are just ways that we need to tweak how we keep to better suit the kept you know but then also i think that there's also a way to keep without saying that you know if you have a jungle carpet python you're depriving it if it has anything less than

basically half of a bedroom you know what i mean which i feel like is kind of where a lot of things are heading nowadays yeah that's true there is kind of a lot of shaming if you're not keeping it like I'm keeping it, then you're not a good keeper and you need to up your game to match? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay, so I believe I've heard you talk on past podcasts about you guys have a... Sorry, cat appeared. About you guys have rodents in labs, correct? Yeah. So I'm sure you're familiar with... I work in a rodent lab in a similar capacity at a university. So I'm sure that there's also points where we can accept that in situations where perhaps space may not be 100% where it

should be, that there are other things that can be done in a scenario such as providing different forms of enrichment, other things like that, that in situations where maybe space is not maximized as much as possible, that we are still giving things to those animals to do that are going to then allow them to display natural behaviors. Like even my smallest, you know, I have one baby rack. It only houses rats and corns and kings, things like that. It still has substrate, hides, branches, leaf litter. They still have all of that. It's just in a smaller environment. And, you know, I think

that's something as well that people could take into account. Yeah, I think, you know, I was going to use another example of, so I was in Costa Rica lastica last year and and we saw um a bothrops asper uh hog nose viper i'm not sure the common name but there um this thing was in it was in a little small forest preserve area i went there mainly to see the green basilisk but they're like i said any snakes you know have you seen any snakes today? And the guides are very helpful. They're like, oh, yeah, go to this point on the map and you'll see a snake there. He's like, you know, there's there's police tape around it.

And so I went there and they have this thing, you know, police tape around the viper. And it was just sitting on the ground. And I guess it had been there for long enough to discover and then put up police tape around it, you know, so it's not moving a ton and you know, it's, it's designed to sit and wait, you know, and you talk about blood pythons and things that are ambush predators that need, you know, specific environment and they do very well, but they probably don't need a room size enclosure. I mean, they,

they might be okay in one, but they're also more suited to kind of that, you know, where they just need to curl up and wait for food, you know, and as long as you're not overfeeding them and they'll probably sit in the same spot for for most of their time there. And, you know, granted, I don't know a lot about blood pythons and haven't kept them per se, but, you know, just kind of that idea of the sit and wait predators. Now, how do we how do we account for the times that they do move? You know, like with the Woma example, you know, they sit in a cage, but then they they move, you know, half a mile sometimes to move to a different spot or to go hunt or something like that,

you know, and for things like, uh, like an Indigo, like you mentioned, man, those things move a ton and they cover a lot of ground and they're active. And I mean, I thought any, you know, people keeping coach whips in captivity, I, I always thought it would be cool to have a coach whip, but I thought I just wouldn't, you could never do it justice. You know, a room size enclosure would be too to have a coach whip, but I thought I just wouldn't, you could never do it justice. You know, a room size enclosure would be too small for a coach whip. You know, they cover a lot of ground very quickly too. Um, so, you know, again, I think when we're looking at minimum cage size, we need the minimum that can, can allow them to perform

some of their functions. And then we need to look for other options outside of the cage. Can you take them outside, put them in a big cattle trough, swim pool-type size enclosure, and let them run around in the sun or kind of get their energy out or something? Let them do some laps outside in the natural sunlight. So again, I think it's good to have that jumping off point, but we need to think about the natural history of the animal. And we've always kind of encouraged that here to learn about lot about them in the wild, you know, other than some, you know, sparse observations in the field for some species. Other species we know a ton about, you know, people have done radio tracking studies or they followed them around and kind of

have seen what they do on a day-to-day basis. But as long as you're actively, you know, searching for information, using the best and newest updated information and making the best decisions cage wise, you can. I think, you know, having that recommendation, at least to start out with, is a very useful and helpful thing. I think, I don't know if I just am repeating myself or I got back off, off the topic. Uh, I apologize. I was focused on remembering what the name of the snake I saw in Costa Rica, which kind of brought that out. But, um, yeah, that, i don't know any i mean i agree with a lot of what you say i mean honestly i think that the biggest thing that like my biggest takeaway from the entire debate is just that there's whenever you talk about like the minimum cage size i think that the biggest thing that people need to take into consideration again is just the, how broad that gray area is in between rack keeper and zoo enclosure. And that there are lots of ways to meet that. I'm not sure. Are you familiar? Have you ever

heard of the five freedoms of animal welfare? Yeah. Yeah. I've heard, I've heard people discussing that. Um, so I once upon a time worked in an animal shelter and it was one of our big things there. And it's basically freedom from hunger and thirst, discomfort and pain, freedom from disease, ability to express normal behaviors and freedom from fear and distress. So a lot of the times that's kind of something I like to go back to where even though kind of going back to some of the history in my own animal keeping career, that there are other ways to meet the needs of the kept beyond just space. If that makes sense, which is something that I feel is becoming very

lost nowadays that, you know, there are so many things you can do, whether it's just redecorating the cage, giving, you know, enrichment, whether it's scent, food-based, things like that, that can enrich and provide more than just space because i think there's becoming this notion that if you just give it the most space you humanly can it will automatically have a great experience which is not entirely true yeah yeah that's a very so i think that's my that's my big takeaway from everything is that there are lots of there's a lot of ways to skin a cat, unfortunately, you know, pardon the term, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say skin a snake, but you know, we'll not. Yeah. Um, the, that, that example of the rodents is a really great one. We did a study

once where we thought that, uh, exposure in utero to a virus was causing hyperactivity. And so we wanted to measure how much the different animals, you know, either born to an infected mother or not, were, you know, how far they were moving and how active they were. And these we thought these hyperactive animals are going to be much more active. But it didn't turn out to be the case, maybe because they would jump off the running wheel mid, you know, they'd get distracted or jump off or something. I don't know. But, um, we found that mice would run about, uh, five miles, two to five miles in a night. And, you know, if, if given that running wheel, cause we had one that, you know, clicked every

time it went around. So you could see how, how many revolutions it was and calculate the distance. But they were running several miles a night, which is pretty impressive for a little mouse. And so, like you said, if you can meet those kind of needs or give them that environmental stimulus or something to help them engage in natural behaviors behaviors that can go a long way. And space is not, I think you summed it up perfectly. You know, it's not just space.

It's how you use that space and how you meet the natural requirements of the animal that's probably the most important. So I think I'll give you the win on this one. That's a, that's a great summary, but I, I definitely think it's a, an important discussion. And, you know, we, we often think like who, who sets the rules or, and, and it's kind of a lawless outlaw society anyway, you know, you look at things like falconry and there's a lot of set rules and, you know, and things that you, you know, or to keep animals, a few animals as best they possibly can be kept, you know, and give them everything their heart desires. So, you know, there's, there's definitely pros and cons to that. And it's all a spectrum. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But I think as long as you have that animal's welfare in mind and you consider those, you know, the five things that you mentioned more than just like I need to give it food and water.

You need to, you know, think about those other things. And yeah, as long as you have that animal's welfare in mind, then I think you're on the right track. So, yeah. Well, thanks so much. That was a really good discussion and some enlightening topics there for sure. Thank you for having me on. or read that were interesting or that sparked your interest. Um, I saw, uh, there was some research done with, uh, geckos and they showed kind of on topic a little bit that they could recognize their own smell and, and their, and that of unrelated individuals. And so, um, I think

about this a lot, you know, with cage cleaning, cleaning you know because people recommend different things for cleaning cages and um i've seen you know wide spectrum i remember one guy used to just every time the snake made a mark he would just get in there and scrub it and it was like the thing was living in an insane asylum you know the white walls and no no uh stimuli other than the white walls that had been freshly bleached because the animal tried to mark its territory or something. The eyes burning from the bleach. It's probably not that far, but yeah, it's not. And then talked about natural history. The same guy was talking about natural history observations, that this species lived on a pile of its own shed skins and feces and things like that. And I'm thinking, there's a little disconnect here between how you're keeping it and how you observed it in

the wild. And, you know, thinking about these geckos, they would expose them to different smells and the geckos would have different behaviors. And the researchers concluded that they could recognize their own smell. They would go to their own like feces and kind of smell those and then come back and compare it, you know, or something like that. So it was kind of an interesting study for sure. But I do think that chemo sensory type behavior that's very prevalent, especially in reptiles. Like an enrichment can be as simple as giving them like a piece of a shed skin from, you know, the same species or something that's housed in a different cage. And you can get them kind of excited about exploring and their environment and things

like that. So, cool research. I was going to say, I'm mean to my snakes. If I'm feeding the false water cobra and I've got a mouse thawed out, I will take that mouse water and drip it along the vents of other tanks and let it drip into the tanks and get, even if they're not feeding, they're getting that mouse smell in the enclosure. Yep.

Kind of torture them a little bit, but you know. Well, and that's natural. They're not eating every time they smell their prey either. You know, it's, you know, for predators to actually have a successful hunt, you know, I guess it varies between different species and, you know, tactics and things. But especially those sit and wait predators could wait a long time before they get a meal, you know tactics and things but especially those sit and wait predators could can wait a long time before they get a meal you know oh yeah yeah definitely but i i don't know i thought that was an interesting study that uh to show the um oh i forgot to mention too i was on

brian cusco's uh he or uh he did a live stream and had me on there. So we were talking about the books and research and stuff like that. So it was a pretty fun time. Nice. You can see that on YouTube or whatever. But Brian, he's a really nice guy and does some really cool professional video work. He filmed Herpeton when I spoke at that when Alan Rapashi and Philippe Devosier put that on. So that was a cool meeting. Hopefully we get back to those kind of meetings again soon.

Yep. Well, anything you've heard or seen in the reptile world that's interesting? I mean, honestly, I've been doing a lot within my own collection, just kind of testing the waters on some, a couple just cohab things, you know, some rat snakes, corn snakes, and some larger enclosures. My biggest project has been, I've been working with a trio of Russian tortoises for a few years and just kind of because the stereotype with tortoises is you you don't keep the male with the females. They'll aggressively breed them. And I've had this group together year round for almost three years now, and I've had very little, if any, issue other than the occasional shove over the food. But I've noticed some really interesting behaviors with them. Like the, I forget which one of the females it was, but the one female would go up to the male and would like turn her head and like rub it along the carapace of the other tortoise while it was asleep. And I did some looking and apparently that has been noted in sulcata

tortoises as being like a social, like recognition type behavior, which I personally found interesting because this is actually a pair of Russians that I have that does produce eggs that I have hatched out in the past. So just noticing some social recognition between them. Um, I've got a small group of garter snakes that I've been keeping and co-habbing. So watching that social dynamic between them and some Nerodia. Um, and then I last summer, uh,

picked up a female monkey tailed skink to go go with my male so being able to watch the um just the social interaction between those two and honestly just how borderline mammalian they act and just the way that like the male will actually bite into a piece of fruit or something and they'll be at the food dish and if it's a particularly choice piece of fruit or something and they'll be at the food dish and if it's a particularly choice piece of fruit or vegetable he'll actually hold it in his mouth and kind of turn his head and offer it to the female because they have they did bond very readily after i got them so just really spending a lot of time kind of working on some target training with a few species of mine um like i have a water cobra from dr loafman um that he told me was target trained and he very much is so you know that working on target training

my monitor so you know just stuff like that and kind of doing other things to increase what they can do outside of their enclosure and also providing them more stimuli within the enclosure has been a lot of what I've been trying to focus on myself. That's really cool. Yeah. I like that thought about the sociality of reptiles. I think there's that book, The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles. I started reading that.

I haven't made it too far in there. I need to keep reading. But I think there's a lot of unappreciated social behaviors in the reptile world. And, you uh, to a social reptile. So good to know their natural history and, and kind of what to expect with those and, and give them, help them, uh, like you said, uh, meet their needs by giving them different stimuli and, and, uh, interactions. That's, that's cool. Cool. Uh, research there. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. All right. Well, um, thanks again for coming on and, uh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's been great. So, uh, we'll have to have you back again. That was a fun topic. Definitely. I'd love to. Yeah. Um,

do you want to put your information out there in case people want to get ahold of you? Yeah, sure. Um, you can always find me on Facebook. Um, I'm not particularly active on there as far as posting. I keep it relatively private, but if anyone wants to find me, um, I'm on Instagram at copperhead.reptilia. Um, so if anyone ever wants to reach out to me, like I said, I don't do much breeding. It's mostly just keeping, but I have a lot of weird species and I'm always happy to talk husbandry of the obscure so cool yeah it sounds right up my alley right on well uh chuck you got anything to throw out there ad nope you've been kind of quiet this time i have i've been quiet. I am quiet tonight. I'm tired, man. Yeah. It's Thursday. It's been a week.

Yeah, right? Yeah. I got a nap in before this, so I'm feeling a little better than I was earlier. You're a trooper. All right. Well, thanks for listening. We appreciate the Morelia Pythons Radio Network and Eric and Owen and all they do and check out the other podcasts on the network. And we'll catch you again next week for reptile fight club. This has been a minimum size cage. Thank you.