Low Humidity and Health

Lately the weather has been getting cold, windy; basically the humidity outside is very low, and my apartment is very dry.

I have the screen top covered, huge water bowl, and I mist basically every time I walk by the tank. I can not keep the humidity over 40%.

I noticed last week when the outside temp was a little high, the humidty floated right around 50%, stayed at 60% if I misted a couple times a day.

I'm wondering how bad these periods of low humidity can be for my snake, and what, if anything else I can do to keep the humidity up. I even put a warm, damp towel in the cage last night and it kept the humidty around 60 until I went to sleep, but I woke up this morning and it was back to 30%.

I'm not sure how "bad" the low humidity is for the snake, but it's certainly not preferable. You might try running a humidifier in the room.

Spend a little money and put together a humidifier. Look at the do it urself link on the left. As far as I know Low humidity can lead to shed problems and RI.

If you can't keep the humidity up in the enclosure, then you really should either build or buy a humidifier, use a room humidifier, or provide a humid hide. Any of those ought to do just fine. Low humidity is not an imminent health threat, but it can exacerbate existing problems or facilitate new ones.

How bad is low humidity? Don't know the precise scientific answer to that one, but to give myself a rough idea, I just imagine myself in a dry environment with no eyelids! :shock:

Next time you put on the damp towel, try covering the top side with a large book so less moisture evaporates. When I do this, my towel stays wet for days.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by steelsack

How bad is low humidity? Don't know the precise scientific answer to that one, but to give myself a rough idea, I just imagine myself in a dry environment with no eyelids! :shock:

---

except our snakes have a fixed cover over their eyes, not quite the same as our setup.

LOL, yeah. That's why I said "rough"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by new2herp

Next time you put on the damp towel, try covering the top side with a large book so less moisture evaporates. When I do this, my towel stays wet for days.

---

Of course, the downside is that the book does, too.

what are you using to measure the humidity? if it's a crappy stick-on, odds are you could stick it in a sauna and it would still sit on 40%. you need a good digital hygrometer (the wal-mart thermo/hygro combo works wonders. either spend 15 bucks, or stress out daily.)

Humid hide is probably easiest solution,if you ever decide to move your snake into a new enclosure, rubbermaids or plastic snake cages (like the ones at animal plastics) hold humidity very well.

i just put a damp towel over 1/2 my tank and my humidity went from 39% to 80% and stays around 75 when i dont kepp the towel damp

Holla! I placed a damp towel in the space next to the heat lamp (but not close enough to heat up and burn, I only use a 50w red bulb anyway), And the humidity is holding right around 50%. The towel stays damp too, been like that since last night. Thanks for the advice, I'm sure Amber appreciates it.