Furnishings
When considering how to set up an enclosure for a new snake, it always pays to give some thought to how the snake lives in the wild. Diadem snakes are inhabitants of arid areas and are fairly terrestrial as snakes go. This does not mean however that in the confines of an enclosure they won’t climb! In the wild they inhabit not just sandy dunes and crop lands but also rocky areas and cliffs. They are well able to clamber over stones and in the confines of the average terrarium, the two or three feet we might offer is nothing to this ‘terrestrial’ species. If you provide ways for them to ascend, they will climb.
I find that most of my specimens prefer to rest by squeezing themselves up as high as they can in the space between the ceiling of the enclosure and the fake rock background, or into crevices in the background itself, rather than rest on the floor of the enclosure.
This species enjoys climbing on rocky walls and surfaces, so I would advise providing shelves and high hides if possible. I went a step further and constructed fake rock backgrounds out of foam, grout and kingspan, and painted these as artistically as I could to look like the habitat the snakes came from.
Beside this, there are basics that any snake needs. Snakes are secretive animals, and several hiding places should be provided. At the very least, a hide on the warm side of the enclosure and a hide on the cool side, and one somewhere in the middle. This gives the snake a basic way of choosing where it wants to rest without sacrificing the comfort of choosing at what temperature it wants to hide. It is an old truism though that the more hiding places you provide for the snake, the more you will see it as the more secure it feels. Hide boxes should be opaque, fully surrounded and offer complete darkness.
Rocks and thick branches can be added to make the environment more aesthetic and give the snake scope to climb around. I prefer to place flat rocks beneath the heat bulb to give the animal a place to bask.
I have always thought that a large part of the attraction of keeping reptiles is to create a little ‘slice of nature’ that is pleasing to look at rather than merely utilitarian and I get most enjoyment from watching my snakes living in such a set up.
Of course the animal should always have a water bowl with fresh water provided as well.
When it comes to substrate, it is largely down to the keeper to choose what is preferred. This is a hardy species that will do just fine with most kinds of substrate and bedding - aspen, bark chips, orchid bark, coco coir, or something more natural. I prefer to always provide loose substrate for my snakes to enable them to dig and root about and this gives them something to do. I am not keen on newspaper as a substrate.
My personal preference is to provide a mix of play sand and soil in roughly 60:40 proportions. This will give the substrate enough cohesion that it should retain burrows; a good test is to poke your finger into the substrate - if the hole remains, then the consistency is good and should retain some semblance of burrows that the animals make. On top of this I like to place leaf litter but of course this is largely down to keeper preference. The litter layer serves several purposes though: it will create a slightly more humid microclimate away from the heat spot; it gives the animals more cover which they will coil up in and feel secure; and when the snakes defaecate, it makes it easier to grab a bundle of the leaves out with the poop to spot clean without removing substrate.
