pet store (please read)

well i went to the petstore to get a heatpad for my new tank. well they didnt have the size i needed. but she said not to use one for a ball python. that they like to burrow to get warm or cold. she said to use nothing but lights. i use a light just for the day. she said it helps them shed better with the lights. i think that she is full of crap!!!!!!! i have always used a heat pad. what do yall think?

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Originally Posted by chrispouliot55

...i think that she is full of crap...

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I agree. Although you can easily make heat-lamps work, they deffinately do not help with sheds.

yeah. she said they like to go under bedding? i was like uhhhhh? nooo? mine dont. she said well thats my experience. but its just a local pet store. i really just get rats from them anyway

I think that my balls have NEVER burrowed, that's more a corn snake thing...but that being said, I've had both UTH and Light heat sources and haven't noticed a difference one way or another. My first ball is still in an all light heated tank and my female is in a Sterlite container with a UTH, both are happy and healthy, though controlling humidity is a lot harder with light heat sources and they break. So for aesthetics, I prefer light, for function, UTHs seem to work better.

yeah i use both. i run the uth 24/7 and the light just during the day. its a blacklight though. i have to run it at night cause they didnt have the size uth i needed. the blacklight works just fine during the day though. she gets light from my window. so its all good

I've honestly never seen a bp burrow. The lady that told you that was ignorant, and whoever told her what she knows was ignorant before that. Think about it this way ok? BP's are noctournal, they really don't see much light, and I would assume because they don't fancy it all too much which is the reason they stay hidden during the day, so technical a light is against their natural habitat. I wouldn't even use a light for just the day, especially if you get the temperatures good, and you can do that with a UTH.

yeah. i use a blacklight. so it doesnt do much at all. its just a heat source. but i do need the light cause the uth i get dont have temp control. so i use both to get the temp right. she seems to like the light to. when she wants to get real warm she lays on top of her hide closer to it.

You can get a dimmer switch from lowe's or home depot, so you can control how hot it gets.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_242008-207-4...roduct_price|1

It looks something similiar to that, but it has a little knob, you just have to make sure it has a male & female hookup, so you can plug your UTH into the female side.

Actually, to have a good shed, having lamps is the worse thing you could do.

yup. thats true. but i keep the humidity up. she sheds pefectly :) and thanks for the help yall!

from what i've heard, bp's absorb heat from the ground, but doesnt mean they burrow. and heat lamps seem to be drying out my tank all the time. i have a hard time keeping it at 50 percent humidity.

That lady is FOS!

My boas and borneos borrow. None of my 30 ball pythons burrow.

Lights wick out humidity and belly heat aids digestion.

Tell that lady she needs to join bp.net and figure out how to care for those animals.

yeah i know. she dont know jack about them, maybe if i had a sand boa!

Rule #1: Do not listen to pet store employees advice.

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Originally Posted by Freaky_Ferret

I think that my balls have NEVER burrowed, that's more a corn snake thing...but that being said, I've had both UTH and Light heat sources and haven't noticed a difference one way or another. My first ball is still in an all light heated tank and my female is in a Sterlite container with a UTH, both are happy and healthy, though controlling humidity is a lot harder with light heat sources and they break. So for aesthetics, I prefer light, for function, UTHs seem to work better.

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Second this! If it was a corn snake, it would be something to consider. But ball pythons don't normally burrow.

Foschi...lol :rofl: but she is totally right! BP's really need the belly heat to digest. You can do it with lights but it is a pain in the butt. As far as burrowing.....I have 2 that will burrow but the ONLY time that mine do this is after I have cleaned their cage. I think they are just rearranging in their own way.

Well if the stores name was PetSmart than they need to change the name to PetDumb, :rofl:

I would think that anybody who has ever seen a BP borrow, it's because they didn't have proper hides. My local family pet business (which is amazing when it comes to all animals) doesn't give their BP's hides, so that costumers can see them. But they do put them in the back in a low traffic area so only the people who want to see them do. Sometimes I've seen one or two of their BP's try to borrow in the wood chips, but they don't get very far.

I've been to a couple pf Petcos that weren't doing a good job at all of taking care of their snakes. They were selling baby BPs for 80 bucks and the BPs had stuck sheds on them, huge log hides to hide in, and of course, they'd stick 2 or 3 in the same tank together which would add a little more to the stress I'm sure.

i use a uth on 1 side and a light on the other for basking the uth is hooked to a thromstate with that set up its easy to control hum.My bp burrows like crazy, the sub strate will be neat and flat at night when I get up in the morning it looks like any army of moles on crack were in their. In the wild bp hunt in burrows, I dont know if they hunt crack addicts in the wild though!

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Originally Posted by speedy3

i use a uth on 1 side and a light on the other for basking the uth is hooked to a thromstate with that set up its easy to control hum.My bp burrows like crazy, the sub strate will be neat and flat at night when I get up in the morning it looks like any army of moles on crack were in their. In the wild bp hunt in burrows, I dont know if they hunt crack addicts in the wild though!

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If you have heat on both ends, where's the cooler side? There needs to be a cool side for you snake to thermoregulate with, and considering BPs are naturally nocturnal, they don't really need to "bask", my BPs never have at least. That burrowing would actually concern me since it's not typical bp behavior....

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Originally Posted by Freaky_Ferret

If you have heat on both ends, where's the cooler side? There needs to be a cool side for you snake to thermoregulate with, and considering BPs are naturally nocturnal, they don't really need to "bask", my BPs never have at least.

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That's probably why my BPs do fine at a constant temp, I keep them 80 to 84ish.

My boa, is quite another story. I'll find him anywhere from plastered against the heat pad (stuck on the outside of the tank) to airing out on his branch to soaking in his water dish... and only occasionally in his hidebox.

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Originally Posted by Freaky_Ferret

If you have heat on both ends, where's the cooler side? There needs to be a cool side for you snake to thermoregulate with, and considering BPs are naturally nocturnal, they don't really need to "bask", my BPs never have at least. That burrowing would actually concern me since it's not typical bp behavior....

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Many people will use low wattage lamps on the cool side to keep the ambient air temperature above 75*.

Ball pythons don't burrow, but they will move substrate around (I see this happen a lot with aspen) to get closer to the heat source.