Breeding Atheris squamigera in really good conditions ?

it 's a long time, I think about Atheris Squamiger, and I am in the trouble about humidity.

sometimes I had read some breeders don't water too much, just a water bowl and manual watering during shedding period, and some others watering daily with a hight percentage of humidity.

we can find a lot off pictures with beast in a hight humidity environment, but what is it for ?

Esthetic of the picture, specific hydration problems, or wrong way of life or the good way to breed them ???
How do you proceed?

In my experience to much humidity and atheris equals death. Thats just my personal experience. All my atheris have waterbowls and get soaked every 10 to 14 days. Derek is the authority on squams here. Wait til he chimes in.

I'm not Derek but my experience is the same.
Keep them dry, good ventilated an cold (26 Degees) and you'll have no problems with respiratory diseases which likes squamigeras a lot.

I spayed a male squam too much and although I had a very very good ventilated cage this animal got ill. Maybe it was weakling but now I don't spay them anymore and they do well especially with plants and stuff the humidity is without spaying enough.
Just my experience.

My appologies jonas. I know others here have extensive exp. With squams. On this side of the puddle derek is a go to guy for squam. Prob. Because of his affinity for the ssp. I agree with your imput. Thats what I found out after losing a pair several years ago. I keep all my atheris at 74 f. Since and very rarly mist. Usually only around molts. Soaking mainly for defication purposes.

Salut Thierry,
This experience is from a few WC i bought in 07 (breeding), some CB i bought, and the own babies. (together 25 at the moment) and over 20 jears squam'.
I keep mine at 20° (night) up to 28° (day-hotspot)in summer, and 18° to 25° in winter. Diferences between bottom and top of cages are +/- 3°. I spray 2-3 times a week to stay between low 50% and high 80%. The cages have only flyscreen on top, for a good ventilation, so i dont get to high humidty for a long time. 2-3 hours after spraying humidity is mostly around 60-70%. They are kept with plenty of natural plants, a waterbowl, and the ground is "ceramis"(grains of clay). Very easy to controll the humidity, and to clean. But 2 things are forbidden, too high temperatures for a longer period and heavy, dump humidity.
In my eyes is a squam within a big range easy to keep. Use google earth to see the huge aera where they are found.
Greetings
Rene
BTW: Yes, they look bether with waterdrops on pictures;-)

My squamigeras never have humidity high like yours, rene.
I spray every week.. And then i let fall down the humidity at 30-40%.
Greetings
Michael Hugi
www.squamigera.ch

Hi Michael,
thats the wide range i mentioned. I spraying mostly to wet the orchids, but very rare dropping wet. I was "raining" yesterday afternoon, today afternoon its down to 58%.
So, no rain today.
Greetings Rene

So basically were all in agreement. Low temps. Low to moderate humidity.

Thank you very much to every one.
that exactly what i thought ! So in fact only a bowl of water , that 's it for humidity.

but do you think it's really important to move temperatures between summer and winter, for neonates, and if you don't want to have babies with adults?
Apparently, a lot of breeders of atheris use exo-terra cages, do you think it's a good thing for the aeration?

And for the heating? do you use cable or heat map.
In fact, I suppose that it's better with a cable, but how do you put it ?
in the bottom or in the back of the cage.

for the hot spot, do you use heat lamps or only cables....

imho:
exo-terra yes!
no great temperature difference necesarry, why do you think about it?
heating: fluorescent lamp, if really necessary (winter with a lot of shutted down cages in the room) at day a 20W halogen lamp for hot spot, thats it. I really wouldn't use cable or something else like this

Exoterra definate yes! If you get the hood that goes on top to match and use an exoterra 2.0 uvb bulb that keeps mine happy as can be. As jonas said no furthur heat sources required.

Exo..what? Gentlemen no advertisement please ;-)
I use 1 T5 / Daylight cool white 6400Kelvin and 1 T8 Freshwater Aqua.lamp.
The T5 right on the screentop gives me the hotspot, up to 30° for about 10cm.
No special heating or UV in use. And even "Vanda's" are flowering.
Rene

Through much of their range, squamigera go through two wet seasons where the temperatures are slightly lower and the rainfall amount jumps dramatically. They are not, however, a true rainforest species since they also go through at least one dry season in most of their range where the temperatures are higher and there is little to no rainfall. This is why squamigera are so tolerant of diverse conditions in captivity concerning temperatures and humidity. You only really start to get in trouble with them when you keep them too cold, too hot, too dry, or too wet for an extended amount of time, as you will get away with it for months because it causes them little stress in short periods. So I keep my animals in the mid range of temperatures and do not do a nighttime drop. I do create mini "seasons" in the snake room and I will raise ambient temperatures and lower them as I wish to stimulate breeding, or simulate an inactive period during the year.

I, like Jonas, keep my animals much drier than many other keepers do. I've found that I see a lot fewer (zero) respiratory issues if I keep the cages very clean and mist them infrequently. During the breeding season, the adult breeders may be misted 2-3 times a week for 2-3 months, but during the dry season they may not get sprayed for 2-3 months. So there's a lot of variation going on here and that keeps them stimulated and cycled to breed. And I say it's boloney when people claim that Atheris don't drink from bowls. All of my animals would be dead if they didn't drink from bowls. I do spray fresh WC animals more frequently until they figure out what a water bowl is, but they do figure it out.

With babies and juveniles, I would not worry about seasonal changes nor any changes in humidity/misting. Just keep them mild and mist them once a week and they will be fine. In my opinion, people get too caught up in measuring humidity and they screw it up for that very reason. I think I have a hygrometer somewhere in my snakeroom, but I never look at it. I'd measure the relative humidity in your snakeroom and maybe manipulate it that way with a room humidifier, instead of trying to manipulate it in the snake cage itself. The microclimate inside a snake cage is usually way too small to get perfect anyway.

I heat the entire room and don't need any other heat sources, but spot lights are typically the best way to heat your cages if needed. Get one corner or side of your cage much warmer than the rest of the cage and the snake can thermoregulate as needed.

I hope I didn't ramble too much, Thierry, and you can find something useful in there anyway. Good luck to you.

I've found some good informations thanks to your last post, thank you. I tend to have a similar approach when it comes to my Morelia viridis, a snake that a lot of people want to transform into fish with 200 % humidity, and even 2 centimeters of water as substrate ! And you're right when you say they'll figure out there is a water bowl. Of course they will, as every snake, and once they'll find, they'll be clever enough to manage their own hydratation if there is clean water available (minor a few exceptions I guess). Weather in nature is not regular, so I think it's normal to do as you do, to spray once time here and there, but not in a regular basis.

Johannes Marchand wrote:

I've found some good informations thanks to your last post, thank you. I tend to have a similar approach when it comes to my Morelia viridis, a snake that a lot of people want to transform into fish with 200 % humidity, and even 2 centimeters of water as substrate ! And you're right when you say they'll figure out there is a water bowl. Of course they will, as every snake, and once they'll find, they'll be clever enough to manage their own hydratation if there is clean water available (minor a few exceptions I guess). Weather in nature is not regular, so I think it's normal to do as you do, to spray once time here and there, but not in a regular basis.

And i think you are right.
No regular missing, like miss nature !

Another question... A few weeks ago in Switzerland, I came to speak for hours with a viridis (among other species) breeder (Roger Meier, for those who know him, and a very nice man by the way) and he was saying that two elements have a major role in spraying such species successfully.

A heated room, to start with to avoid fresh draughts, and most of all, using heated water, so that there is absolutely no change in the temperature whatsoever.

It sounded rather logical to me.

We were debating about keeping such species dry, with only water bowls; I was also telling him that the snakes I know (my friend's) are doing well, 7 years old for the oldest, and that they just drink when they need it for long moments, to go back to their branches when finished. They are all fine, and breed as well.

Still, he was expressing his concern about a lack of 'regular' drinking, alluding to possible kidney issues. Those were only hypotheses as he put them, but it made me think.
My friend has a snake that he sometimes has to help defecate/urinate by massaging it, because the mass in the belly is too hard and doesn't want to come out...
May it be linked in any way?..

I think, like I've mentioned in an other forum, that one has to addapt himself to every snake he owns. Some specimen won't have any difficulties to drink regularly from the water bowl, and some other won't even drink the drops from their scales, and so on.... My viridis don't havec any problem defecating, nor dirnking. and one of my other Morelia, which is not a viridis and not supposed to be kept with high hygrometry, need a lot more humidity, like 2 big bowl of water + spraying everyday during the shedding period, otherwise, its shedding is catastrophic.

And yes, spraying with really hot water is the good way, with the pressure of the sprayer, the water will just be perfect, not too hot , and not too cold.

Thanks to everyone, it's really interesting! That 's help me to understand better the process of breed this type of snake!
(if you have some example of cage heated by spot light heating, I should appreciate to see them!)