Snakes don’t care aslong as they can climb and hide and get warm
@Bl69aze Did you actually read the various question the OP asked? The only advice I can give you here is that if you want to be taken seriously on any forum, then you need to respond to specific questions as asked. Your current reply is meaningless and therefore worthless.
@LilithLeChat
“I guess that may explain why she’s been piling up the bedding near the entrance to her hide, I guess it’s too big for her.” From the information you have provided, that sounds like the likely reason - she is trying to conserve heat and feel more secure at the same time.
“She weighs 40g, and the mice I’ve been feeding her weigh 5g. It seems I have to go up to 10g mice or rats.” In an experimental run some years ago with sub-adult spotted pythons, one group was allowed to eat to rejection every two weeks. Snakes are like fish, opportunistic feeders that will eat what they can when they can - as they don’t know when they’ll get their next meal. Many fish will over-eat to the point of killing themselves, whereas snakes usually stop short of that. These snakes in the experiment, on average, ate a one third of their body weight i.e. 33.3%. So one could consider that as safe maximum. At the other end of the scale, a python eating 5% of its body weight, all else being equal, can remain healthy but will obviously grow only slowly. So anything between 10% and 30% of body weight per feed is going to be within those margins. The most commonly quoted and utilised range of feed weights compared to body weight (which excludes those trying to get their animals to breeding size in a hurry) is from 15% to 25%. What you ultimately decide upon is up to you. Usual feeding rates varying from 5 – 7 days for hatchlings, to 7 – 10 - 14 days for juveniles. Sub-adults about once every two to ththree weeks. These are gross generalisations and lots of people may vary from these.
Some snakes in the wild eat bird eggs. Is that something that can be added to their diet, eg, quail eggs? This happens vary rarely with Australian snakes, and usually as result of a python disturbing a hen on the nest so that the eggs are warm and have a very strong scent of bird on them. IMO not worth trying to replicate in a captive’s diet, but someone may have a different views on that and a successful technique that can be employed.
“Question about decorating the enclosure: do snakes need environment enrichment, like plants, various objects etc, or they don’t care?” This is a contentious topic. While we know we can successfully raise generation after generation in the minimal environment of racks, should we be catering for their other behavioural instincts at the same time? Clearly, it is not essential. But people drw parallels between battery hens laying eggs in tiny wire cages and free-range hens. Is the difference between birds and snakes sufficient to not warrant it? I know how I feel about it but that is based more on opinion and personal perception rather than scientific facts at this stage of our understanding.
“If I were to put plants in her enclosure, should they be living or fake? Anything I should avoid? Would living plants help with humidity?” Living plants are not easily grown indoors unless you know what you are doing. Any inclusion of plants in an enclosure will increase the humidity by varying degree, depending upon a range of factors. These include the type of plant/s, their size, their number, how they are embedded in the terrarium and watered, the ambient conditions outside the terrarium/enclosure, ventilation and rate of air exchange, whether it is winter or summer etc. The simplest way to look at it is ask yourself how close to the humidity level to that recommended for my reptile? Now, can I afford to increase that significantly for the sake of growing live plants? If the answer is no and you still want plants to produce a more naturalistic environment, then you have two choices. First is to go with artificial plants. There are some amazingly real-looking plastic and silk plants available these days. Dried natural plants are also an option. Dried clumps of spinifex (Triodia grass species0 and a number of grass and arid zone native plants can be spectacular appropriately placed in a well landscaped “desert environment”. Add some nice pieces of mulga hollows and some appropriate looking real and/or fake rocks and you produce a scene that looks like it was lifted out of the wild, with zero effect on the humidity level.
Am too tired to proof read this tonight... sorry.
