And Greg Maxwell sold his entire collection 3 years ago. Said collection is now, I believe, in its third owner.
Gtp care.
- Thread starter crayfishguy
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so 85-80 degree temps, keep it in the mid 60's for humidity. ni thought spraying was necessary so they could drink water from their coils. raise the humidity to about 85 when in shed. a good sized water bowl (cold i put a heat mat under it to have it raise the humidity more?) what could i use besides eco earth? i would want a natural set up. 36x24x24 cage. if the snake is on the ground there is something wrong. i plan on researching for a long time.When I was first getting into GTPs earlier this year, my chondro friend told me that there are lots of things we don't know about these creatures. So far we've figured out how to keep them alive, and how to get them to breed. That's about it. That's all we need to know right?
There are so many different ways to successfully keep chondros it seems. Many breeders will have different ways to go about it and they will have comparable/equal success using different methods. I personally find this unsettling.
One of the things you don't want to do is to keep them too hot. Keep the temperature on the hot side at about 85 and on the cool side at 80. Dip into the high 70's at night is okay.
I personally no longer spray my animals except for during shed cycles and sometimes after meals. I'd say straight 60-65% RH is good as well, and peak into 80-85% when in shed, allowing it to dry out in between sprayings. There are other ways to achieve RH, like a hefty sized water bowl. Many people do think that they need to be kept in very wet conditions, but I would wager that will do more harm than good.
Eco earth substrate would be fine, although IME they tend to dry out and get dusty down the road.
3x2x2 is plenty good, personally that's what my animals will be going into. However, many successes have come from considerably less than this purported norm.
My male is always wandering around, at times finds himself on the floor, but a chondro that is off-perch is telling you something IMO.
The More Complete Chondro is a pretty good book that's worth the money. It's an interesting read to those who are starting out with nice pictures but some keepers will tell you that they'd rather use it as cage substrate than an information extraction pool. Some of these people have more credentials than Greg Maxwell. Maxwell just happened to be a guy who wrote the book, he is just famous for the commodification of 'high-end designer' chondros. He is comparable to BP breeders who breed for colour, and if you go on his website and take a look at the recent breeding updates you will see what I mean.
I researched chondros for 4 years before I brought one home. Now, this had a lot to do with college/funding/timing issues but I am very glad that I did my homework. The last thing you want is to get one of these from a show on a whim, get stuck with a nice unstable WC that will drop dead on you the next week.
Read as much as you can, find a breeder in your area and bombard them with questions. If they are worthy of your time and money, they will be delighted to talk to you.
That is what I thought too until I saw my animals snout-deep into the water bowl every night. If you want some interesting reads on spraying chondros PM me, I would link it here but I'm not sure if posting links to other forums would be allowed.
I wouldn't heat the water bowl, it works for us keepers in raising humidity, but for the animals themselves I don't think it would be ideal. As you know, warm water is actually a pretty good condition for bacteria to manifest in.
I guess you could use cypress mulch (depending on how 'green' you were), I personally think it looks nice and it's also good for humidity. However, it would probably do more damage than eco earth if the snake ingested it.
What other substrate would work?would there be much chance of ingesting the substate besides during feeding?
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To be honest with you, if you want to go with a naturalistic set up and were worried about snake ingesting the substrate, eco-earth would be one of the better choices IMO.
There was a case of this gentleman whose chondro swallowed 2 plies of paper towels that was being used as substrate. The snake consequently threw it up and died. This incident was documented in another forum. For this reason, some keepers will use newspaper instead of paper towels as it is harder for the snake to snatch and swallow. I personally still use paper towels.. lol
There was a case of this gentleman whose chondro swallowed 2 plies of paper towels that was being used as substrate. The snake consequently threw it up and died. This incident was documented in another forum. For this reason, some keepers will use newspaper instead of paper towels as it is harder for the snake to snatch and swallow. I personally still use paper towels.. lol
well i was wondering if there was any way for it to ingest it besides during feeding
well i was wondering if there was any way for it to ingest it besides during feeding
If the snake wanted to eat the substrate, I guess it would. I don't fully understand snake-psychology, so there is no way for me to answer that question. It's unlikely, IMO. Think about it this way, is there someone in the wild who looks after the snake to make sure they don't swallow other substances other than prey items? I am sure other things get swallowed in the process.
A GTP eats mainly while perching. So only if the perch is verry low and it uncoils coild the prey item get substate, more so if it is wet.
No big problem there. In any case, i always watch them feeding, and when it happens i slowly try to pick the substrate up with tweezers.
No big problem there. In any case, i always watch them feeding, and when it happens i slowly try to pick the substrate up with tweezers.
thats what i thought. and i could always put a plastic surface under him while he eats. just in case. what substrate that looks natural would you recommend? i am not a big fan of cypress mulch
