Reptilarium, schematic!

Thank you Batto, as always opinion/presentation from first-hand experienced person is most valuable.

 

Actually as Batto wrote, if we go into a deeper analysis of enclosures, several not-so adequate or shortcomings can be identified; It is most important the enclosure furniture and design to resembles to or be like natural environment from where species (of snake) originates.

But when we look at the enclosures in general, some of them are quite big in comparasion to many in other zoos. And they are better in comparasion to what enclosures I have saw on net from other zoos/private keepers. And snakes are quite vivid on video.

Batto why pine bark is not adequate?

 

It's very interesting, as climate in Brazil allows keeping snakes in outdoor enclosures. These one enclosures should be the ones of very few in the World, housing snakes outdoor. (?)

 

The fence around terrariums in visitor viewing area, is immagined to be a relatively low fence (1.5 m) wich will prevent quick passing of eventualy escaped snakes, it's not clasical wall. However now this conpcet will be changed a little bit (eg. providing more sepparation enclosures, reducing species number, but materials remain the same, and using of natural lights - also acting green'' - reducing consumption of energy).

 

It seems aimed at the collector not the visitor. While the lay-out says "Look what I have" it does not create an attractive environment to draw visitors to your zoo. Zoo visitors (outside of members of this group) expect more from a trip to the zoo than rows of boxes with animals.

 

But such zoo-trip arrangement of reptile enclosure (in or out a reptile house) would demand higher energy consumption, and will not be very practical from husbandry aspect. Such trip would be accomplished more by enclosures of birds, and particular by enclosures of mammals and other facilities; anyway in most zoos reptiles are kept in reptile houses in wich there is not real, exciting trip, and combined reptiles enclosures are just one piece of such trip.''

 

The climate doesn't mean much, since snakes are native or have similar requirements. Either way, you need to use burrows, control climate, etc.

 

Your reply confirms to me that your planning is not about making a successful, self-sustaining facility (and business) as much as pleasing yourself. I do not think there is much wrong with that if you can find a way to fund it and pay your employees and suppliers.
Still, since you have planned a small zoo, not one of the great conservation facilities on the planet, why then even have this reptile house? Why not plan reptile exhibits for the visitor and the animals if you are to have them at all?

 

Because I love to indulge in more serious ex-situ conservation work (eg. as only holding institution of some species and making it's captive population self-sustainable), I guess? Not just to please visitors with very common species, although visitors should be pleased yes, for making zoo self-sustainable. I can plan a great conservation facility - zoo, but it's achievement would be almost immpossible nowadays (and depending where).

 

Apart from this, in what way the visitors can be best pleased in respect to reptile enclosures - how reptile enclosures should be arranged and built, can you explain a little bit from your point of view?

 

I thoroughly enjoy reading this thread. I get amped when I see it at the top of the feed with new posts. Delusions of grandeur are great to read. I thank Batto for bringing the reality back to this thread. Rows of terraria side-by-side, are somewhat boring. Depends on the species in the collection. While rare is fun, great eye candy to look at, some of the more drab taxa is actually more fun to work with. Housing species is a whole different can of worms, so to speak. The "postcard" image vivs look nice, but usually do nothing for the husbandry of the inhabitants. In the end, it's just a box. That box needs to support all life events, and that is hard to do based on "postcard" fabrication. Also the whole natural sunlight thing seems weird. Where in nature will most taxa be exposed in direct, open ground absorbing the "ball of fire"? Most taxa are small and predators are nearby. What of the species found in heavily forested areas that live on the forest floor. How do they get that great sunlight? It's all fun to read, wish upon a star, and so on. It takes a lot of work and dedication, not to mention costs to keep such collections up, running and going long-term. Energy usage is part of it, feeding and prep is another, Vet care is very expensive, and most don't seek to provide that. They'd rather search the web, post on forums or try the flagyl, panacur or other route. It's also paramount to have vivs up and running before the animal(s) take residence. Everything should be measured from temperature to humidity. Not just by some probe, pulling surface temps or measuring air temps. What of the hides, burrows, water, mass (substrate)? Takes time, days, weeks, maybe months to dial it in. An animal can be "alive" for x amount of years, but was it thriving? What is the hope of the facility or keeper with said animal(s) other than display? What will they allow the animal(s) to accomplish or will they even support them to accomplish anything than being living jewelry? What about proper quarantine period and what that should entail? A good facility or even keeper should be able to do a basic fecal exam before dosing animal(s) and doing more harm than good. Before an animal even arrives, depending on where it came from getting information about prior medical is iffy. Imports come in, dehydrated, overmedicated or they get to the facility and are given a standard dose of whatever, while their body is already under stress and complications are beyond settled in. Everyone has their heart-strings pulled over human trafficking and the like, but most of the animals are in worse conditions. Piled on top of each other, held in boxes/pens, placed in sacks and packed into crates placed on ships, planes or the like. Stolen from their home because they were slow to be caught or curious to fall for entrapment with enticed food or the like. Only to end up on some other continent and sold for profit. It is much like the days of slave trade, sad to say, but it's the truth. Maybe one, two or more survive of the 100's or 1,000's taken. Then to make it into a facility or person that can properly care for or provide care for them. Back to the thread, this facility you dreamed up isn't feasible and won't work. Nice try, but given the species you may want to work with, let alone venomous, I'd get a kitten.

 

A few things that I also have to point out (though far less serious than other very helpful and informative replies to this thread):

On the first page you asked if you should add turtles. They are crowd pleasers (as far as reptiles go) and you'd ideally want a smallish but active species. If you want to do ex-situ breeding with them, there are still plenty of options, especially if you can partner with an organization such as the Turtle Survival Alliance. The Dallas Zoo's great reptile house (which is slowly evolving out of a box in a box in a box style) is not as good as it could be, only display three turtles that are quite hard to find. That is the one area in which it was seriously lacking, and rather disappointing as the rest of the collection is great.

With the amount of cobras and other dangerous animals in the building, you will certainly want to have a room for antivenin (or whatever you want to call it) and other emergency supplies. The quicker that a proper antivenom is administered, the better.

While I'm not as properly informed on this point, it seems to me like it would be common sense to have the quarantine facility in the same building as well. It would make sure the animal is in nearly identical conditions to those of the exhibit, to see how the animal fares in the conditions, and what needs to be adjusted. It would also reduce the stress of moving on/off exhibit, eliminating travel time.

Just some thoughts

 

I would have various rooms to accomodate a range of species needs. As some species need it cooler and will perish if it gets warmer than 12°C. As those species can't be qxt'd where you have animals that have basking needs of 48°C or higher. You'd also want multiple entry/exits, possibly footbaths, gloves for handling, other equipment. This would have to be set away from the collection some, so the facility would have to be larger or have multiple floors. You'd also want a separate food prep and cleaning area to eliminate cross contamination. Not to mention, mechanicals, filtration, chillers, air handlers, separate climate controls, the works. It's not as simple as some make it sound. Should also have an area to store animals that perish so the Vet' can do a necropsy on grounds or off. The separate rooms should also be spacious enough, not just storage racks with vivs, tubs or other enclosures.

That is why Animals in Herp Houses should be housed by climate needs, not geography-based. The areas should also have doors or other forms of keeping climate control. Certainly wouldn't find me housing Onychodactylus next to a Varanid. One should know that one would perish soon.

 

Thanks for explaining that, Gulo gulo! Reading what you post on this site has taught me a lot.

 

The deficiency of others is no excuse to not strive for optimal housing. There are various examples of vivaria in zoos and even more so private keepers (just look at the various "naturalistic vivaria" FB groups, venomland etc.) illustrating what can be achieved in regard to animal welfare and naturalistic, eye-catching presentation. However, the cultural background does play a role here; in general, I've found the reptile husbandry systems in most American zoos (and at the majority of private owners) to be often rather lacking in size and structure, aesthetically rather questionable (the Naja annulifera exhibit at Staten island zoo is a prime example for that), overcrowded and favoring practicability over the actual needs of the inhabitants. Don't get me wrong: the majority of European reptile enclosures isn't much better, and there are several great reptile exhibits in the USA, in particular some good outdoor exhibits. But the good ones (both in- and outdoors) I've seen in various European countries do stand out.

Being vivid doesn't have to mean that the snake is enjoying itself. It depends on the species and the individual specimen. If an otherwisely calm, reclusive snake is moving around a lot, there might a negative stressor to blame for.

It's dusty, which can irritate the respiratory system in more delicate (rainforest) species, can lead to mucosal oral lesions and foreign body obstipation when (accidently) digested etc. etc.

 

There are actually quite a bunch of facilities (and private owners) worldwide keeping snakes outdoora-most often, native local species.

One of my favorites are the outdoor vivaria at the Alpenzoo Innsbruck.

 

The post stamp collection-style presentation, often based on a taxonomic (frequently outdated) foundation has fallen out of favor in modern zoos (with reptiles as one of its last refuges), which, in my books, is kind of a mixed blessing. In theory, it's a very good thing from both the presentation, husbandry and animal welfare point. Both staff and visitor can focus their attention on less animals, while the animals have more space at their command. In reality, this has often resulted in standardized collections with a few mainstream (reptile) species (often the same ones you can obtain from the next Petsmart around the corner, and that's not too rarely where they actually come from...) half-heartily maintained in standardized presentations. In the meantime, the dedicated reptile keeper keeps the interesting species either behind the scenes or privately.

 

Could you give some examples other than Alpenzoo Batto? That would be interesting and helpful I think.

 

@FunkyGibbon: sure! In regard to public institutions and offhand I would mention

- The majority of exhibits at Reptilienzoo Landau
- Reptilienzoo Nockalm's outdoor and several of the indoor exhibits
- The Indian Gharial exhibit and the Giant tortoises meadow at Prague Zoo
- The majority of exhibits at the Freilandterrarien-Anlage Stein bei Nürnberg
- Individual reptile exhibits at Bern and Zürich Zoo
- The chelonia outpost of the Auffangstation für Reptilien, München e.V.
- A Cupulatta, Corsica

 

In what then most reptile houses in zoos differ from this basic concept (apart from better opportunities for climatic control); after all they too contain boxes in it walls in wich reptiles are kept, and such boxes often are of sizes of just like home aquaria for fish. If you note better, mine dimensions range from 1 to 3 meters and more (and heigh of 1.5 to 3 m) (and that these boxes actually can be the size of your bedroom). They (conventional reptilaria) only have more space for visitors and stuff.

That doesn't mean that there will be no shelters (living plants, rocks, wood - depending on species) in the enclosures or boxes as you call them. The roof will be shadowed when there will be need for that. It is weird and interesting, with natural sunlight. It's better for reptiles to get used to, so can feel what natural light and sun influence is all about (and that they are not in blue or purple nuance), when we speak for future re-introduction in the wild, as there is no artifitial lights and UV-lights in the wild, for released reptiles.

I wrote in my initial post that microclimatic conditions are not disscussed; There is plenty of literature for this issue, and no need for further disscussing here.

I planed quarantine reptilarium seprated from this, as initialy this plan for reptilarium was as part of a zoo (in wich there will be separate quarantine enclosures for animals, in some corner of the zoo. Also as quarantine enclosures can be used some of the ''boxes'' - with proper biosecurity. And of corse there is also planed a small veterinary ambulance with small laboratory. It loosing sense if everything is put in the same building.

And of corse this will undergo many changes, and thus I created this thread to get opinion/criticism about that what is better, and what is wrong all about.