I was lucky enough to find a wonderful reptile only "place" around where i live. Its a father and son and they breed all of their animals i think it is a wonderful set up. I purchased a female ball python 07 hatching from them on friday and brought her home. everything has been fine except for the temps, i'm beginning to think she's getting stressed.

she's in a 20g Long aquarium with reptibark substrate, two hides (one on each end ) and a little grape wood log in the middle and a toilet paper roll tube since i figured she might like it. i covered the two sides of the tank with black paper to minimize reflections and shadows and she's got a pretty little backdrop ( all these are outside the cage ) because, well, i like it when its pretty (lol). she also has an UTH, that keeps the amient temp around 72-74 degrees at the substrate. ( somehow..both therms read between that. the digital at 74, the analog at 72).

but onto the temps. the little temp gage they gave me is one of those tiney analog ones that i thought was aweful. i tried to gage it to the thermostat in my home to calibrate it. it went well until we turned the themostat off ( we dont have air and its not cold here yet ). so..i went out and bought a digital thermometer and hydrometer (all in one) at home deopt for like 10 bucks and thought it was great. i put it in her cage right at belly level. well..humidity read 65% at that point and i thought it was too high, so i ended up putting a 25 watt bulb in the light fixture i also got with her. the temp was initially at 84 F according to the digital thermometer. this was supposed to be the warm side. All the mean while she is acting fine. moving around occasionally, stopping to relax. however the one weird thing she is doing is not using any of her hides. neither at night nor during the day. Last night i switched out the 25 watt bulb to a 60 watt in hopes of being able to raise the temperature on the hot side. before i went to bed the temp was at about 88 F or so the thermometer said. I have the light on a timer so at around 10 o clock it turned off.. well, i didnt go to bed until about 1 something and woke up a lot during the night. The temp dropped down to 78F and the humidity spiked at 84%! this was at 6am. however, all during this time she seemed fine. acting like she'd been acting. not cruising around, but sometimes moving, sometimes not. At 9 oclock i turned her light back on. the temp went back up to 88 F and the humidity went down to 65. the next time i went to check on her she was balled up all the way at the cool end of her tank like i'd never seen her. i put the analog therm. in and it read 100 F. its a 10 degree discrepancy. i ordered a thermosat, and a red bulb ( so i can keep it on at night ) from..lilreptiles.com i think, but it will take 5-8 days to get here. i'm also pestering friends for known calibrated thermometers because i need to get accurate temps. i'm measuring everything ON the substrate because thats where she is.

and wow im so sorry for the novel. she's my first snake and i thought i knew how to get everything done but i need some help. i also looked at the care sheet i was given by the store owner.

im thinking my digital thermometer is not reading right, or that she just likes it cold.

- Samantha

[ edit ]. didnt put in she had an UTH.