Making a snake room

So I live in Arizona and I have an extra bedroom that we have just been using as storage and has my tortoise with tortoise table in there. I was talking to my husband tonight and came up with the idea of just turning the whole room into a reptile room... I have 5 ball pythons right now and plan on picking up a few more in the next year or two. So my plan is instead of running tons of heat cable maybe just heating the room? Has anyone here just run a reptile room with heating the entire room and not the individual cages? My plans on doing this is to block the window and seal it so no heat is escaping or coming in and blocking off the a.c. vent part way so it is easier to control temp but still have a little air flow. I also have looked into a ceramic space heater that lets you set the temp and is supposed to keep it regulated with a built in thermostat. Also maybe have a humidifier in the room to help with humidity since I do live in Tucson, Arizona. I was going to buy a digital thermometer with humidity gauge built in just to keep an eye on the room temp and of course have thermometers in each cage. I have decided to ditch all my tanks and outfit 32qt tubs for my ball pythons. Then have those tubs on a rack that I was going to get from home depot. If anyone has suggestions please let me know. Thanks!

Ive got a seperate room in the house just for my snakes. I have shut off the AC vent during the summer and am running a space hearter in there for their heat. I have this room regulated between 80-90 degrees. Now in the wenter when I kick on the heat I will open the vent back up and turn down the space heater. I do not have any heat under any of the tubs. I have 13 snakes in there and havent had any problems so far with them. I do not use a humidifier in the room, I dont know if you would really need one since you are going to put them in tubs. Maybe someone else on here could chime in and give their ideas. This is just what I do and works for me.

Here's a question.... Could you hook a space heater up to a Themrostat, and adjust the desired temp to *example*, and just maintain heat that way?

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Originally Posted by B.O.S Reptiles

Here's a question.... Could you hook a space heater up to a Themrostat, and adjust the desired temp to *example*, and just maintain heat that way?

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A friend of mine has his set up to a Themrostat and it works for him. I dont, mine is set up on a timer. Ive had to play with the times it comes on and off to get it at decent ranges. I may look into getting a Themrostat and going that route, but for right now I dont. I may get one this week.

I'm going to start renovating my extra room tomorrow and see what the temp is like for a few days before I add the balls in there. Then I'll have a really big cage that I got a great deal on open up in my living room.. Trying to talk my husband into letting me get a hogg island boa for it..

the cage :
http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/y...ps121630f0.jpg

I'll chime in since we're geographically close. It's definitely possible, and I suggest you check out the advanced husbandry subsection for advice on not using a hot spot. That method, though uncommon, has been done successfully. I shut off the A/C vent to my snake room in the summer, since there is a large tree shading that area and cooler air from the rest of the house creeps under the door, this keeps the room around 80. In winter I use a ceramic space heater (with good tipping/fire safety features and a built in thermostat) to keep the room around 80 at floor level, 85 closer to the ceiling. Humidity can be an issue for us in the desert. Since I use paper substrate, I have to keep the water bowls on the heat tape (because I still use it on my racks), as well as misting near shed times. If you use cypress in the tubs, I think your humidity would be fine without a supplemental humidifier.

I wouldn't mind raising the ambient temp in the room where I keep my snakes to about 78.

Many big breeders heat up their facility to a flat 85 instead of using individual cage heating. So its definitely doable.



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many big breeders do it.

Brians facility, BHB reptiles, does close to everything that way.

they have rooms at different temperatures for different species, BP room, coloubrid room, etc. They even have an incubator room optimized for BP incubating, where they just need to put the egg boxes in shelves because the whole room is regulated to optimal incubating temperature. for eggs of other species, they might incubate in boxes on top of the racks, or in the BP room, whereever the temperatures are a match. they have all species that they have in large quantities or that permit it set up that way, no hot spots, no electronics in the racks.

so, yes, possible.

basically you need a heat source, and a really good thermostat (you do not want that one to fail, or if it does you want an alarm set up, and it should measure temps in more than one place, like one probe near the ground, one near the ceiling, one in a tub), and you need the right air circulation or the snakes at the bottom will get a much colder climate than these at the top. so some small fans as well.

I'm up in northern AZ, and we just set the house to about 77 year round and it makes our snake room stay at 78-80 consistently. We still give each their own hot spot since the room never gets above 80, and we have some that are better in cooler temps in another room that stays a few degrees cooler. Don't forget to QT new additions in a totally separate room if possible and I adore my Hog Island BCI: they're really nice boas.

Ok so I set my room up today with thermometers in the room as well as in the cages. The only animals in the room are my ball pythons now. I moved my tortoise to my bedroom because she's a greek and with her MVB it would make it to hot for her in there. I should have mentioned that my a.c. unit stays between 80-85 because I can't handle cold temps. (I'm a T-10 paraplegic and have never really been able to keep my body heat even before my accident). I have a ceramic space heater with a built in thermostat but I'm not really having to run it right now. With the vent shut off and the window insulated the ambient temp is staying around 85. The whole reason I wanted to do this is because my male bp is kind of dumb. He will bury up at the hot spot and just lay on the glass on top of the UTH until he gets a burn (this has happened once because I wasn't home and the person snake sitting for me didn't check every hour to make sure he wasn't buried.) I don't want to have to worry that he will be stupid and burn himself again, my girls have never buried and so don't have this problem with them but if I'm trying to fix it with him might as well do it with all of them. Plus gives me something to do with that empty room. Thanks for all the input, I'm going to keep a very close eye on the room for the next several days to see if I need to tweak anything.

On a side note I didn't get a Hog Island, I ended up getting this very sweet Dumeril Boa instead (I will post pics on a new thread).

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Originally Posted by Amberlove

Ok so I set my room up today with thermometers in the room as well as in the cages. The only animals in the room are my ball pythons now. I moved my tortoise to my bedroom because she's a greek and with her MVB it would make it to hot for her in there. I should have mentioned that my a.c. unit stays between 80-85 because I can't handle cold temps. (I'm a T-10 paraplegic and have never really been able to keep my body heat even before my accident). I have a ceramic space heater with a built in thermostat but I'm not really having to run it right now. With the vent shut off and the window insulated the ambient temp is staying around 85. The whole reason I wanted to do this is because my male bp is kind of dumb. He will bury up at the hot spot and just lay on the glass on top of the UTH until he gets a burn (this has happened once because I wasn't home and the person snake sitting for me didn't check every hour to make sure he wasn't buried.) I don't want to have to worry that he will be stupid and burn himself again, my girls have never buried and so don't have this problem with them but if I'm trying to fix it with him might as well do it with all of them. Plus gives me something to do with that empty room. Thanks for all the input, I'm going to keep a very close eye on the room for the next several days to see if I need to tweak anything.

On a side note I didn't get a Hog Island, I ended up getting this very sweet Dumeril Boa instead (I will post pics on a new thread).

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Before anybody else jumps in and says anything rude I'll say it nicely.

If your UTH is hot enough to cause a burn on your snake then you have it set way to hot. What I would do if I had an UTH on an aquarium for a BP is keep a shallow bit of aspen so that way the heat gets through easier and doesn't have to be hotter, then he may not push all of the shavings out of the way. I still have almost all of my bp's do this.

My bee is the biggest one taht will do it, but my black pastel & spider do it as well. I haven't had an issue with any other ones doing it as of yet. Just a thought for measure.

I made a thread about this a while back, take a gander.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...use-a-hot-spot

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Originally Posted by Neal

Before anybody else jumps in and says anything rude I'll say it nicely.

If your UTH is hot enough to cause a burn on your snake then you have it set way to hot. What I would do if I had an UTH on an aquarium for a BP is keep a shallow bit of aspen so that way the heat gets through easier and doesn't have to be hotter, then he may not push all of the shavings out of the way. I still have almost all of my bp's do this.

My bee is the biggest one taht will do it, but my black pastel & spider do it as well. I haven't had an issue with any other ones doing it as of yet. Just a thought for measure.

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Actually I have it set to a lower temp and the aspen is really shallow (not even a 1/4 inch thick) so he doesn't have to dig. The problem is he is dumb and dug and laid on it for 3 days straight without moving. The person watching them didn't think anything of him laying in his hide for 3 days straight and not coming out to regulate. I'm sorry but if you put your hand on something warm and keep it there for 3 days without ever moving it, you will get a small burn and that is what happened to him. The burn was very small and healed and shed off within a few days. I just don't want to take the chance of this happening again because he is too stupid to self regulate and it is very likely that I will be in the hospital again. I've had 1 of my BPs for almost 2 years and another for over a year and never had a problem til I got him. I really don't like him because I swear he is stupid (he puts his head under to drink and almost drowns and thinks he has to be on the glass to stay warm) My house itself is never under 80 degrees. I love my snakes and take the very best care of them. None of the other snakes I own or have owned have ever gotten a burn, had mites, or a RI. I used to own a Colombian boa about 6 years ago and had him up until 2 1/2 years ago when I got very sick and was in the hospital for 2 months and then came home and could no longer care for him (he was 8+ ft and I am only 5' and when "healthy" 90 lbs coming out of the hospital my weight was down to 65-70 and I was weaker than a newborn). (I am a T-10 paraplegic due to the fact that I was ran over when I was 4 years old by a full sized van; therefore, I have a lot of health issues and do end up in the hospital sometimes and that is what happened when I had a "sitter" for my BPs) I am not trying to sound hateful or anything just giving you the facts that he is just plain stupid and I don't want him to get burned again because I end up in the hospital for weeks on end and not here to make sure that he moves every few hours. So I just wanted to create a room that was safe for him and something easier for a "sitter" or for my husband to check on if I'm in the hospital for an extended stay. I shouldn't have to give up a hobby or my babies because I have health issues but my snakes shouldn't have to suffer because I'm not here sometimes. So I just wanted a set up that works for me and my problems.