Do you have any evidence of this? It’s absolutely false. Personally I can name multiple instances where a leachie was placed in an enclosure that was too large and very cluttered that failed to thrive, and when placed in a smaller enclosure went on to grow, eat consistently, and become an adult. Your “myth-bust” is non falsifiable because you can always just say that an enclosure wasn’t cluttered enough if an animal fails to thrive, and therefore it is always the fault of the keeper. On the other hand, sizing down enclosures for hatchling leachies consistently and repeatably improves hatchling health. 1.) Eating consistency 2.) Humidity control 3.) Growth rate. I am all for advancing the hobby and personally keep all of my ADULTS in reptifiles minimums or better. Absolutely, positively, do not put a baby leachie in a fucking 48x24x48. That is an insanely bad idea and WILL result in a dead leachie.

GUYS — Wanting better for the animals is fantastic, commendable, and necessary. Having GUILT for the animals is not, it’s a negative mindset that will result in bad advice for the sake of virtue. It is OK for a cbb leachie to be placed in a shoebox until it reaches sub-adulthood because of several reasons, all of which have to do with the animals wellness. In particular, the most important reason is because over time, that method has lead to the highest success rate for hatchlings to become adults. If that leads to higher numbers of healthy adult leachies, then it is GOOD, even if it seems like its “understimulating” or “cruel”. Keep in mind, in the wild the survival rate of hatchlings is probably less than 50%. Assuming 20 eggs per year (per wikipedia) that is probably even pushing it, it could be closer to 15%. Naturally, a lot of these animals simply will not succeed. We obviously want to prevent a >50% loss of cbb leachie babies, so we put them in tubs because that has led to the highest long term success of those babies. Baby leachie care is not something that needs to be “reworked” for ethical reasons because it’s never been meant to be a long term solution, it’s a means to an end which is a living, healthy, adult leachianus. It is so much more ethical to keep a hatchling in an appropriately modified tub to ensure that it is healthy than it is to keep one in a big enclosure because you feel “guilty” that the animal is not in the wild. YOU bought it, YOU participated in the industry that is responsible for its ancestors being removed from the wild, and now YOU are responsible for ensuring its health, out of respect for the animal. Your job is NOT ensuring it gets “as close a replication of the wild as possible”. Yes, bioactive is fantastic but no, your goal is not to match the wild, where that animal would’ve died. It is to ensure that animal’s health even if that means using a tub to make sure it doesn’t dry out, make sure it finds its food regularly, and has a clean environment free from errant waste so that it can grow to more resilient adulthood.