I’m could have worded this better. Ambient temp matters on some level because they thrive better. I think we all get that.
I don’t get telling people they need to go buy secondary heat source because 73 is unacceptable.
My real beef with this is then newbies go out and buy a frickin light bulb and blast light on the poor thing 12 hours a day and you can’t tell me that’s better than it being in a tub ranging from 73-90 instead of 80-90. I should have just said this in the first place I guess this is an issue I’ve been kicking back and forth in my head for quite awhile and not getting what people say to “line up.”
I bungled this my bad guys. Poor phrasing of the question that’s why I wasn’t getting the answers to the real question.
Obviously it’s important. But I don’t think having a cold side of 78-80 and NO COOLER is so important that someone should go buy secondary heating equipment. If low/mid 70s consistently is safe…let’s just tell people that. Someday when they get a snake room they can dial it in even more to optimal levels.
Not offended at all.
I keep all 112 adult ball pythons at my facility at a room temperature of 74 degrees. The amibiant in the tubs is slightly higher at 76 - 79 degrees due to the rack system. All of my ball pythons eat without issue whenever food is offered. Have not had any BP’s get an RI in over 10 years. I heat the room as it’s cheaper to set it up that way with so many animals in it. If had the room temp lower the cost of running the electric heat tape would be way higher. It also means that even if my rack heat tape fails my snakes are never going to be too cold.
You can certainly keep BP’s at a lower room temp if you’d like so long as your in space the animal is living in(rack, tub, terrarium, whatever) is heated properly. That means if the room is 68 you need to set up the heat so you can have the animal in an ambient temperature higher then 73 at a minimum. I never said the room has to be in the 70’s.
Now the why they should be kept at a higher ambient temp is this. They are reptiles can not produce heat on there own. The biology is such that they can do digest food properly at low temps and it will rot inside them causing a whole host of issues. Least of all vomiting. Reptiles muscles start to slow down when they are cold and the heart is a muscle so it too slows down causing circulatory issues. Cold temps also linked to respitory issues as well. Being kept at the lower end of what generally acceptable might be ok for a while but it will definitely cause problems at some point. Maybe not today but some day.
I also want to add that while most people do use racks, for those of us who use tanks or other systems having a high ambient temp will definitely aid in keeping tank temperatures up. It’s hard to keep an ambient temp of 80+ in a tank in a 65 degree room, even with lights and under the tank heating.
For me having high ambient temps just makes husbandry easier, and in the event that something catastrophic happens and my heat source fails, I’m going to worry a lot less if they’re already in a 75+ degree room
I wasn’t just asking for myself but this ended up just…not going where I wanted so. For myself I think I’m likely to be fine during the warmer months. I might need to make some changes next winter though. And its probably something I need to start monitoring more at the least.
I’m happy you started this toppic. I had this same discussion with a friend who is keeping snakes since more than 20 years. Some years back due to divorce he had to move to a trailer for some time and it got cold there, but his snakes never got sick. But they didn’t eat either in that time. For about a year I didn’t notice either that at night my temp’s went down at night to about 21 degrees celcius and had no problem at all.
I lived together with a Sierra Leonian guy for many years and know many people from Ghana and Nigeria. They always complained about the cold in cold season. So I collected some climate info on for example Bolgatanga in the North of Ghana ( I’ve been there and used a blanked at night in november).
I will never claim that everyone who is keeping ball pythons for many years is wrong or that we should suddenly thrown all temp. Requirements overboard. I myselfs also use a heat wire now to keep the ambient temps up. But to keep 26 degrees ambient temp in a living room or bedroom is a challenge to say the least. So maybe, just maybe it’s not that strickt as we all think.
This is the present weather in Kumasi in Ghana, and we are in warmer time at night now. And night is the time our snakes like to be active and crawl around
One of the reasons I went with the Brace build I was talking about. The wife of the man who builds them told me that they wont move, and will could tighter while being burned. That’s why they use back heat. Apparently with back heat if it gets too hot, the snakes move to the front of the tub where the cold side is.
Do you know that even that small human children don’t know by nature that they have to move if they get burned? I did some voluntary work for a organisation that helps burn victim’s. One of their campagnes was directed on telling people to cover heaters and hot surfaces so children can really not get to them. It seems that if a child puts like his hand on a hot surface and get’s burned it doesn’t automatically realises that the hot surface is the reason for the pain. Our automatic reaction to pull back when you get burned is something we learned and not instinct. Still sometimes have difficulty believing it but they where very certain about this and they worked with burn victims every day.
So if children don’t even know it is not so strange that snakes don’t make that connection.
I mean, in my opinion that just means both children and snakes aren’t exactly intelligent enough to know not to touch the thing that burns them. We all know children aren’t exactly the smartest creatures and if it weren’t for parents they wouldn’t last long lol.
