My beardie Charmander is showing signs of brumation but hasn’t pooped in like 2 weeks despite eating many crickets! I’m worried to reduce his light hours and temperatures and fully let him tuck under his log to brumate because I don’t want him to have that food in his stomach rot. I’ve tried to encourage a bowel movement with warm baths and massage but no luck yet. Any advice?

Love seeing this discussed so much now by so many people. When i first brought this up on other podcasts over a year ago, that i was selecting for personality and behavior in addition to appearance, people laughed and said no one would care. Now everyone is talking about it and its great, makes me happy. Ive already got pythons with incredibly desirable personality traits and im actually looking to replicate and amplify that, basically to domesticate the ball python. If nothing else, i should be able to learn a lot about what can be done when you are really trying.

Too much sugar glazing ;-)

same as people, security is the illusion of life,

What does Thomas have to say about them ?

Is there a way to contact Francis to get a rat snake from him?

A video I didn't even know I needed! Thank you for making this, giving options & explaining what everything is for.

No i can't feed a snake baby chicks

How long should I hold it infront of my snake before determining it wont eat?

Taste buds offended 🤣

What would you recommend for a ball python that has refused food for over 4 months? He's not losing weight but will not eat. I've tried f/t rats and mice I've tried live rats and mice (under lots of supervision) what other options do I have in a generally rural area where I don't have a ton of options?

She doesn't look happy

I’m looking at getting a Russian rat snake this year. How would I contact Francis about buying one from him?

Looks amazing plan to do a similar scrub style tank for my African house snake. What wattage is the heat lamp?

I find aloe vera would be quite easy to kill! My leo will stamp it out!

I thought it was pretty crazy that Exo was the 1st company to come out with this combined uvb / led lighting system. I thought for sure that Arcadia would be the 1st to come out with something like this. Kinda bummed about that since that’s all I use are Arcadia products. & these new Exo light bars don’t come in different lengths & diff watts is that correct ? So what if you have a big enclosure or have a monitor that requires a 12% or 14% uvb ? I’m guessing these wouldn’t work out to well then lol. What other reptiles besides your leopard gecko are you using this new lighting system with ? Just curious 😎🤙🏻

I have actually managed to k1ll every aloe vera plant I've ever had. Well, one of them was eaten by the isopods in a bioactive tank. I have cacti, succulent and other type of plants doing just fine, but aloe vera, they are goners instantly. And is there a reason why you didn't use any stones in the setup? I have used stones to keep the heat, since our house gets very cold during winter, and I wanted the stones to keep giving the heat during the night. So I have plenty of rocks inside my leopard gecko setup.

Do you have a video on how/ why you acquired a leopard gecko? 🤔

This was relaxing to watch. Great tips and ideas.

For the mentioned using LED-UV to replace UVB fluorescent tubes, aren't they dangerous for vitamin D3 overdose? Even from a animal test perspective, the choice of leopard gecko seems poor as the small body size makes it dangerous to perform multiple blood draws during the test. Without blood tests, the signs of vitamin D overdose can be easily missed in the early stage and it would be an unethical animal test with only qualitative data. Lizards over the weight of ~300 g would be more ideal for blood tests. The demonstrated setup also lacks a strong enough linear visible light to go along with the linear UV tube. Animals are evolved under one sun and can't choose to sit in the "proper UVI", they choose to sit in the proper lux. Without at least thousands of lux of visible light with a distribution similar to the UVB, the animal will be misled to underestimate the UVI at the basking spot.

This enclosure looks great! It’s also very functional too. I will say with reptisoil that it can get pretty dusty when dry and coat the animals that live in it. It also gives my hands splinters sometimes! But if taken care of it’s a solid substrate option… just be aware it can give ya splinters.

I was thinking of getting a leopard gecko timely video,,how do you say to sterilize ie make sure it is safe free of bugs insects natural bark etc???????

Can you throw red wriggler earthworms into the substrate for food / composting ?

I love how passionate you are about your reptile husbandry and making your enclosures look pretty while also being functional! Adorable gecko btw, keep making great content! I think you make a very good impact on the community :D

Really nice Snake plants are also almost impossible to kill.

One of my teachers has a hairdresser that got a leapord gecko for her kids, but they ended up getting scared of it and neglecting it.. she wants to rehome it and I want to rescue it so badly but I don’t think I could keep it long term..

Beautiful!! That’s one lucky gecko! I would love to do this for my big leo boy, Bart. Where do you get your cork bark? You always have the coolest pieces!

Can I mix this substrate with reptisoil to mimic the play sand and top soil substrate I see others use?

Just rescued a sweet adult female that has been in a 10gallon her entire life 😢 I can’t wait to move her into an adequate space as soon as she out of quarantine. A simple setup like this will be perfect!

❤

Me sitting hear with my dying aloe😗

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1. People are already breeding ‘bad’ hybrids that would never exist naturally because the parents aren’t even from the same continent, nor do they have similar care requirements. But thus far these instances have been few and far between because hybrids are largely rejected by the reptile community, so there’s not much of a market for them. But if attitudes towards hybrids shifted towards a more positive direction, guaranteed there would be hundreds of breeders lined up to create whatever they could mash together to generate the most profit - animals be damned. 2. People are already struggling to take care of the standard species we find in the pet trade. There’s so much good, reliable, well-researched information on how to keep Royal Pythons and yet they’re one of the most poorly-kept species in the hobby. I don’t think people would have an easier time with hybrids (even if they were hardier), especially since we have little information on how to keep most of them, even the naturally occurring ones. 3. I already think there’s wayyyy too many snakes being bred. The supply outstrips the demand as is and if we throw hybrids into the mix that’s just going to fill a pot that’s already overflowing. 4. We don’t keep records of things! If we were a tightly regulated industry that required paperwork to show proof of lines and health testing and such then I’d probably be more forgiving of hybrids. But as is, as a buyer you wouldn’t know what you were getting! Is it a corn-king hybrid, or is it something else entirely? Is it going to have a stable temperament or is it going to be psycho (I used to hear that Burmballs were particularly nasty even though neither of those species are known for aggression or defensiveness)? Is it going to top out at 5-6ft like a Green Tree Python or is it going to get 8ft+ like a Bredli? You’d never know for sure! You’d just have to hope that the breeder was telling you the truth, and that they knew what the truth was to begin with! Personally, I’m not against naturally occurring hybrids, but people suck and I don’t trust them to do right by hybrids and so therefore I am firmly against them. Having said all that, I really enjoyed your video (as I do all your videos), and look forward to hearing more of your opinions in future!

I unsubbed from a bunch of "snakes in racks" people thanks to your info.

my bearded dragon is a sleep in jan and feb in 2025 he was late this year

What's its name and what breed of gecko is it?

She’ll be fine my gecko escaped its enclosure one day and I found it 2 and a half weeks later and he had gained some weight so he definitely was thriving while he was missing

Oh my, so much space... did you manage to find her again after she ate? :-D

The roaches may have identified as an alternate species or gender

A little bigger and you could house a whole gecko harem in there

She will survive and love it! My leopard gecko is in a 4x2x2 bio active enclosure and he loves it! 2 years he’s been in it and no problems just make it cluttery with natural decorations!

Flippin' 'eck man.

Honestly i have done research and watched tons of videos for years and respect a lot of different keepers who do things in different ways. But now that i have two ball pythons of my own, i can't imagine putting them in a rack and i even doubt if 4x2x2 will be large enough. I adopted a 6 month old female and a three year old male within a week of each other. They are both in very enriched large sterilite tubs with plans to upgrade soon to larger pvc enclosures. For my male, his tub is much larger than a rack with 2 hides, a humid hide, a shelf, a hammock, and lots of plants making hiding places. But, i think he's a little longer than the tub stretched out. Hes about three feet long. He uses everything i give him. I want him to be alble to really slither in his enclosure which would mean it would have to be like 5 feet long. Hes going to live there forever. I can't imagine sticking my snakes in a dark drawer with nothing. How they would feel. Ive had thrm three weeks and already observed their different personalities and many behaviors. Then again, my ball pythons are often onserved late at night when i interact with them and they have plenty to interact with. How can you observe the difference between individual snakes and their different behaviors when you literally cant see your snake and when you do, theyre all just sitting there in an empty tub without even a chance to shiw their personality. My girl is very curious and spends active hours halfway out of her hide. She coluntarily comes out to sniff me and when im handling her if i put her on the ground she chooses to come back and crawl on me. He is much shier with me, but explores and uses his whole tub lol.

I believe yes hognoses are venomous, but that is not reason to have them banned. If I tell anyone I have a venomous snake they will start hysteria

It’s definitely a great solution! The thing I worry about is if the snake might be able to get underneath the rock and squash itself somehow. However, I acknowledge that this might be seriously paranoid of me lol… but it’s one of the reasons I don’t have rocks in my ball python’s enclosure.

I'm an advanced snake keeper, but a novice BD keeper... This is the best information, hands down I've seen on this topic.. Thank you

I panicked when I realized that my baby will be shedding, and then I found this guide. So grateful.

This is a really cool video! Too many of us started out with a store kit because that's what we're told is best for them & all they need. You show us how to make the best of it & I really appreciate it.

I had no idea! This is really cool, thank you for sharing!

I know I'm two years late on commenting, but I just watched this video & really appreciate the wording used here. I'm starting to see this difference between hungry and just food he likes. Thank you!