Illustrated BP Housing Tutorial.....

I figured I would put together a tutorial of sorts for those who have questions regarding how to house thier BP's. This is just a little thing I came up with and by no means is it infallable or Holy Scripture. I do things simply and to the point. This is just a tool to help others......

Well, to start off with, you need an enclosure for your BP. My enclosure of choice is the Rubbermaid/Sterilite container, modified to have air holes by either a small drill or soldering iron. These hold humidity well and are inexpensive to obtain or get rid of when your BP gets bigger. Below is a 16 quart snap-top rubbermaid:
http://novogate.com/forums/1647/user/23319/9478.jpg

Then we need to figure out how to go about heating this enclosure. I find that human heating pads are the best way to go. They do not dry out the air in the cage and are inexpensive ($10-15). They are also safe to leave on 24/7 and do not put out light that may stress out your BP. I always keep it set on the lowest setting which should keep the warm side around 88-90F. Below is a pic of the box of the kind that I prefer to use:
http://novogate.com/forums/1647/user/23319/9707.jpg

Now that we have the cage and heat source, we need to get the stuff to put in the cage. I house my BPs with 2 hides.....one on each end of the cage to allow for proper thermoregulation. For the hides, I just use either the plastic plant bases you can find at any garden center or Wal-Mart or terra cotta pot bases of similar size with an entry hole. Then a water bowl. For the substrate I use either paper towels or newspaper because it is easy to clean, cheap, and I do not have to worry about my snake ingesting any loose bits. Here is a pic of what my BP cages look like:
http://novogate.com/forums/1647/user/23319/9708.jpg

Now that you have your cage ready, you need to monitor the envronment your snake is in. The bet way to measure temperature is with a good digital thermometer with a probe, or a temp-gun, seen below:
http://www.novogate.com/forums/1046/user/6806/7991.jpg

I know I probably left some stuff out, but hey I'm not perfect, lol. I hope this helps someone and feel free to ask questions and/or make comments, suggestions, etc. Thanks for reading!

looks good David. thanks for sharing.

That will help alot of people out that come in here needing to know exactly that. But trust me, we will still get questions, LOL. You should make that sticky or ask the prez to put it in a permanant section somewhere. That's quite a time consuming post to be left on the bottom of the pile when people post new threads in this forum. Great job.

Thanks for sharing.
Jennifer

And for what it's worth, a digital thermometer/hygrometer combo with 10' probe was $14.88 at Wal-Mart today. Not exactly prohibitively expensive. It was with the outdoor thermometers rather than pet supplies, garden, or other possible merchandise areas.

very nice,
thanks for the info. Ive been waiting for some one to put a specific, step by step, easy to understand tutorial for enclosures.
Can you give us an idea of what this would cost?

Depends on choices you make, but the enclosure itself should run anywhere from $3 to $20, ~$15 for the digital thermometer/hygrometer, ~$10 to $20 for the heat pad, $1 for a roll of paper towels, free to $20 per hide, free to $10 for the water dish, pennies for water and electricity daily, ~$10 for a soldering iron if you don't have one. Going cheap, that works out to $5+$10+$15+$4 ($1 ea. for hides, water dish, substrate) = $34.

Thats great! I would like to bread ball pythons eventually and that would be a cost effective way to manage them.
One more question: How many air holes do you recommend for adiquate ventilation/humidity?

ok I lied, heres another question:
Do you set the enclosure directly on the heating pad or do you raise it?

Ventilation will be adequate with just a few holes opposite each other and optimal humidity management will vary greatly depending on your ambient humidity. I generally put holes about 2.5" apart and make a second row if needed. I also read a tip that suggested putting your holes near the bottom on your warm side and near the top on your cool side to help maintain your heat gradient (since heat rises).

Basically, the best thing to do is find a container you like that works for the size snakes you have, set one up as you would (with heat pad, water in water dish, etc.), and monitor temps and humidity, adding holes as needed or making thicker or thinner layers of substrate, until you have it right and then just copy that setup for the other containers (and of course check temps and humidity in them, too, as even the same brand and model heat pad can vary in the heat it puts out or can be wired backward as one of our members dicovered).

I also read a tip that suggested putting your holes near the bottom on your warm side and near the top on your cool side to help maintain your heat gradient (since heat rises).

That sounds like a good idea.
Thanks for the info, Ill have to expeiriment (Ive been looking to get jaggy out of glass and into sterilite for a while now anyway)

To answer your other question, you need to raise the enclosure off the heatpad. Not by much...just 1/8" to 1/4"...enough for air to move between them. If it rests directly on the pad, the heat is trapped and could potentially build up to dangerous levels.

I have seen set ups where the pad is actually inside the enclosure.
I am guessing after reading this post that the pad goes under the container itself. Lets say the container will be kept on the floor. What is the best way to set things up? Should I place 4 checkers under each corner and place the pad under the container?

I am switching from a 20 gallon glass tank to the rubbermaid style and want to do this 100 % correct.

that will do fine. just as long as you arent smothering the heating pad and it isn't covering the entire bottom of the enclosure.

I have also seen this type of setup with a ceramic heat lamp on top. A square is cut in the lid and covered with mesh.
This looks easier because no hole needs to be cut in the lid and there is no need for a ceramic heat lamp which can dry out the cage.

I may do this for my baby redtail boa until my new boaphile cage arrives.

What are everyone's thoughts?

You hit the nail on the head as far as drying the cage out with overheads - its hard to go wrong with this setup.

Right on! Thanks Smulkin. I left for work this morning with my heat pad set to Medium. The settings are low, medium and high.
The warm side temp was 89 with 60% humidity. I am not sure how long it takes to heat fully on any given setting so I left it on medium. I did raise the cage a bit to allow for air under it. Also is it ok to keep the cage this way on a carpeted floor?
Thanks. I will post pics by Friday.
My new setup for my baby redtail boa is as follows.

66QT Rubbermaid snap top home made cage.
I have aspen mulch for substrate and have a human heat pad under one half of the cage. The cage is slightly raised up to allow for ventilation under cage between heat pad. I have a large reptile water bowl inside as well as 2 hides, one on each side and am monitoring temp and humidity with a digital unit from Walmart. As of this morning the temp. was about 89 on the warm side with humidity about 60%
I have the heat pad set to medium(high is the next and last setting)
I was affraid to use high and come home to an enclosure that was too warm.
Tonight I will try high and see what the temps are after a few hours.

The breeder said my current setup is fine and a ceramic heat lamp would be too hot and dry out the enclosure.

This will be a temp setup for about 3 weeks until my new boaphile cage arrives.

Thanks,

Kevin

I have a problem. I bought a heat pad with auto shut off, the dam thing shut off and my temp fell to 82.
Should I buy one without auto shut off or am I missing something? I can understand why this feature is there but for our purposes it is not going to work as this is my only source of heat.

Yeah see if they will take a return or exchange - worth a shot. The ones without the auto-shut-off are usually the cheapest on the shelf.

swapped it out, I should have noticed the auto-shut off when I bought the first one.

what about light? will a sterlite container need a flourescent light or will the natural light in the room be enough to stimulate the photoperiod?

The light in the room will be good enough.

one quik :?: what size Rubbermaid would you consider for a full grown Ball Python

thanks

Here's a great site to go to: http://reptiletubs.com/ But anything with 6 floor sq. ft. or more should do. :)