Heating Q's For Home Made Cage

Rich I'm not too sure if theres such thing as "too big of a cage"... His looks pretty close to the same as the ones Ive built and I have 4 snakes in cages like those with no issues. The cage may be a little large for a baby but I wouldnt rule it out just yet... Every snake is different so you dont know until you try it out. Since he already has it built I would give it a shot... worse comes to worse you spend 10$ on a tub and move him over... I house my babies in 66qt tubs and they work just fine... again I have pics of my setups in my gallery if you wanna check em out...

Like becky said the heat panels are a great idea... I was going to go the same route but I have 10 snakes so 10 heat panels at 80$ a pop isnt worth it... I just heat the whole room to 79. If you only have one and dont have the option of heating a whole room id go with a heat panel.

the cage is 40L x 18W x 12H.

what if i put alot of hides in there would its still stress out the snake?

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Originally Posted by JoshJP7

Rich I'm not too sure if theres such thing as "too big of a cage"... His looks pretty close to the same as the ones Ive built and I have 4 snakes in cages like those with no issues. The cage may be a little large for a baby but I wouldnt rule it out just yet... Every snake is different so you dont know until you try it out. Since he already has it built I would give it a shot... worse comes to worse you spend 10$ on a tub and move him over... I house my babies in 66qt tubs and they work just fine... again I have pics of my setups in my gallery if you wanna check em out...

Like becky said the heat panels are a great idea... I was going to go the same route but I have 10 snakes so 10 heat panels at 80$ a pop isnt worth it... I just heat the whole room to 79. If you only have one and dont have the option of heating a whole room id go with a heat panel.

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Josh,

With all respect you also advocated using a ZooMed 500R as a reliable thermostat in another thread. He asked when we thought the snake would be big enough to use that enclosure; going off the size of the dvd player on top of it I think its way to big for a bp. He would have to ensure proper temps and humidity first and then run the risk of the snake still not doing well.

What do you mean by reliable? If you mean it works... then yes your right i did... Did i say it was the best? no I didnt.. either way what does my advice on a thermostat have anything to do with cage size? Until youve tried to use a cage that big and failed... id hold off on making comments such as "its too big." Just because others tell you "its too big" doesnt mean it wont work. Ive proven over and over again that size of the tank isnt as important as proper humidity and temps... Another falicy is that larger cages are harder to maintain temps/humidity... this is true with GLASS... but not with wood enclosures... With just a heat pad and a water bowl I was able to maintain temps just fine until it got cold here in NY. I dont want to come across as rude but you cant knock anything until youve tried it...

OP you can throw in a couple extra hides... wont hurt... I said before you can try to put your baby in there and see what happens... I kept my first hatchling in a 40gal tank and never had any issues so its worth a shot as long as you know you may have issues.

Josh,

I gave advice based on my own experience not what others have told me. I kept my snakes in 20g long when I had two of them, temps and humidity were perfect and I still had a heck of a time getting them to feed consistently. I spent a ton of money trying to make it work only to buy a rack and stick the tanks in the attic. Just because he has built this cage already does not mean that I'm going to give him the advice to use it, because I feel its not in the "snakes" best interest. This is my opinion feel free to PM if you want to talk further as I don't want to clutter this thread.

The difference is you had a glass tank... I used a 20gal with my first snake and had problems too but the problem isn't the tank being too big its getting temps/humidity right in glass. Unless you live somewhere where its naturally hot and humid all the time or you have a snake room ,a glass tank is always going to cause problems bc its challenging to get temps/humd right. 99% chance the reason you had problems is bc temps/humid werent right on.

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Originally Posted by JoshJP7

The difference is you had a glass tank... I used a 20gal with my first snake and had problems too but the problem isn't the tank being too big its getting temps/humidity right in glass. Unless you live somewhere where its naturally hot and humid all the time or you have a snake room ,a glass tank is always going to cause problems bc its challenging to get temps/humd right. 99% chance the reason you had problems is bc temps/humid werent right on.

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No the reason was not my temps and humidity because they were spot on like I said above. I believe it was security issues, but since I can't sit my snake down on the psych couch and ask it I can only assume so.

I guess im curious as to what you spent tons of money on then trying to fix it? I spent a buttload on heat lamps, CHE, plexiglass to cover the tops of the cages, reptile humidifiers all trying to get temps/humidity where they need to be but I cant see what would cost a lot of money to provide security... hides are like 4$... As long as you got it solved now its all good.

The cage you made looks great. A lot of people are saying you need this and that and you need a tub. These people are just saying whats worked for them. As we well know there are mulitple solutions to problems.

I had a baby ball in a 20 gal which is deemed to big. He was fine, he was eating and shedding well. I have since moved him to a 32 quart Iris tub. I also have my 139g spider female in a 32qt. Most people would say you need a 6-15 qt, but my set up is fine. They both eat every week, shed correctly and poop correctly.

The reason why it is fine is because I add a lot of "things" to make it smaller. Like, fake bushes and extra hides. These add security and also cut down on size.

I would recommend using the cage you have built and just adding branches, extra hides, water bowl, fake bushes. Let him settle in. If he starts having problems I would switch to something smaller, but until then he should be fine.

Good luck and more compliments on an awesome cage!

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Originally Posted by SUDISTIK

Ok here's the deal..me and my wife bought a baby ball python two weeks ago, Ive Decided to build a big enough cage that can be it's perminant home. I built this thing out of MDF board and lined the inside with a stone looking linolium with four 3 inch circular vents. Now this is my first snake of my own and i bought a heat rock the same day i bought the snake not knowing that it was a "Big NO NO" but before i found out it was a no no i set the tank up laying the heat rock on top of some subtrate and and then covering it with more subtrate..right now the snake is still in a little pet container while i get this situated, the temp is at about 75 at night and 80 during the day... but i know thats not good enough yet...now im seriously thinking about changing the heat rock to a heat pad but im worried about it getting hot enought to melt the linolium or burn the wood...is that possible? what do i do? also the humidity stays between 50% and 60%...is that ok?

here are some pictures of my set up..i still have to buy a hide rock,but maybe someone can help me with this issue

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...6/DSC02297.jpg
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...6/DSC02300.jpg

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Thought I'd help at least a little- I haven't been much help, seeing how I just got my first BP a month and a half ago myself.

Anyhow- Wood burns at about 450 degrees Fahrenheit. I dont know about linoleum though, but I think I can safely say that it shouldnt be anywhere near hot enough to melt it even.