In Case I Havent Made Myself Explicitly Clear Before:

I picked up some dendrobates leucomelas at the expo this weekend. I’ve wanted these frogs for a long time and I am very happy to finally have them.

Vivarium has ferns, bromeliads, creeping fig, pilea, pepperomia, and tillandsia.

⛅

“What If Our Pets Were Bugs??”

Can i be completely honest?

I wasnt sure the display enclosures I built were the best choice. Even though i am pro enrichment and larger enclosures, i had my doubts that a ball python would use all that space.

The behavior im seeing is so awesome though. Like Khaleesi, who is 6-7 years old now, raised and bred entirely in a typical rack system for most of her life, is a very different snake. She would hide pretty much exclusively, even in my larger tubs. If you check the past posts- i believe i excitedly posted a photoset seeing her out for the first time ever a few months back. That alone was amazing to me. Now, my mind is blown. Youve seen the pictures, but im not sure you know how proud of her i am.

Look at that. Confidently chilling up top where the hotspot is about 95.

Part of me wasnt going to put her in a display. Not because ball pythons do poorly in large enclosures, but because i was certain she wouldnt use the space, whereas the animals i raised with enrichment would put it to better use. It sounds funny but i was scared i would find out animals treated like breeder would never take advantage of enrichment and thusly would not “need” it. That would make all of my efforts pointless.

Despite all that, I intuitively felt that she needed to be in the first completely finished display enclosure.

You can see, that was the right choice and she has expanded her behaviors.

I see her out and about, but shes also more confident. For example:

She started to periscope when the door was closed, and i was able to open the door and snap this picture without having her shirk away in fear or immediately seek a hiding spot to escape.

Watching her and the other females use their enclosures to perform different behaviors has encouraged me again.

And now, when i get responses like this:

I can smirk and laugh, because my animals are healthier.

Oh i also saw Asteria and Prometheus mating out in the open 🤷‍♀️

The beauty of the Yellow

Found this on Facebook! BOOST!

Tell Etsy that #ThisIsNotNative