How would I go about cooling a tub for breeding I obviously know how to heat it a with a heating pad but would a simple fan just work for cooling the tub?
While you don’t have to cool ball pythons to trigger a breeding response, I’ll assume your heated spot is just on one side of the cage at the proper temps. You can just turn the heat off at night and back on at day 12 hour on 12 off type schedule. That should be sufficient, unless your reptile area stays very hot like upper 80s or higher. This will do a night drop and does work well. I did this my first few years, until I got the experience to know and pay attention to building and breeding signs in the snakes. Good luck, hope you get some eggs!
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As @banereptiles says except dont just turn it off at night if your in a cold area or room and it would cool too much so it interferes with digestion.
Agreed cooling is not needed to stimulate breeding (but too hot can kill sperm) I have slightly cooler temps all year round and no drop in breeding season. but if you must cool, use a night drop thermostat (usually combined wit a timer). You can then ensure the drop is just a few degrees, and if it gets too cold the heating will kick in again.
I used to cool many temperate snakes, but ball pythons are tropical animals. They also usually live in rodent burrows, any depth in the ground negates any temperature fluctuation.
Mine are all going at it like rabbits without any minor seasonal temp drop.
However, low air pressure (e.g rainy season seems to make more of a difference)
So I find this link more useful:-
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@ascended is totally right! I kept mine in a reptile room where the ambient temp would always be in the mid seventies. So I didn’t need a night drop setting on mine, depending on temperature in your reptile area you may.
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Though I do not have a large sample size, I have not noticed a difference by lowering temps. I now just maintain the same hot spot all year. My breeder females are in freedom breeder 70 series tubs and I use 12 inch heat tape with each lever having one foot sections. I keep that at 89 degrees year round wired to a herpstat. I used to lower the temps prior to pairing in the fall. I would slowly lower the temp from 90 down to 80 over the course of a few weeks. Then I’d warm them back up in early spring. But now I just keep it the same all year. No difference for me.
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Lowering temps will help promote better fertility but it’s not required to promote breeding.
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