fellow ball python keepers...

Just curious about what temps you keep your ball pythons at and how you heat their cages.

I keep mine right around 90° on the warm side and I use a UTH, on a t-stat of course. Sometimes if the room gets a little cool I use a 25 watt red light bulb, and the cool side is upper 70's to low 80's. I also use an infrared heat gun. Useful for spot checking temps :gj:

I don't provide a hot spot from May to September/October the rest of the year when I do it's at 88

Belly heat at 91*F on the warm side, the cool side is a degree or so above ambient room temp.

Belly heat with UTH. The hot side is at 90, ambients range from 80-82

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Originally Posted by Deborah

I don't provide a hot spot from May to September/October the rest of the year when I do it's at 88

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Just curious why no hot spot from May thru October? Something to do with brumation? Also what do you maintain your ambient temperature at during this time?

Belly heat with heat tape at 90F and have RHP providing ambient temp which is at 80F.

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Originally Posted by albinos_rule

Just curious why no hot spot from May thru October? Something to do with brumation? Also what do you maintain your ambient temperature at during this time?

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Because my animals are kept in a room right under the roof and by cutting the AC off the room achieve 86/88 on it's on.

I run my snake room at no cost and it is more efficient than trying to cool a room that is at 88 degrees down to 76 to than provide a hot spot.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Because my animals are kept in a room right under the roof and by cutting the AC off the room achieve 86/88 on it's on.

I run my snake room at no cost and it is more efficient than trying to cool a room that is at 88 degrees down to 76 to than provide a hot spot.

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So you maintain the room temp at 86-88°? That would mean the entire enclosure would be at that temp, right? If so do they not need a cooler area in their enclosure say more like 80°?

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So you maintain the room temp at 86-88°? That would mean the entire enclosure would be at that temp, right? If so do they not need a cooler area in their enclosure say more like 80°?

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That makes the enclosure at 85/87

They are fine with higher ambient temp and no hot spot many breeders including large breeders such as the barkers have been using ambient temp and ambient temp alone, it just needs to be high enough.

Trying to maintain 86/88 or even 85 as a ambient temp and not provide a hot spot is not something everyone can do, I do so because it makes sense to do something efficient energy wise, during the winter it would be inefficient and the cost would be high to try to maintain those temps for the entire room so I use an ambient temp of 76 and hot spot of 88.

If you ambient temp is 76 or low 80 you will obviously need to provide a hot spot and a gradient.

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Originally Posted by albinos_rule

Just curious why no hot spot from May thru October? Something to do with brumation? Also what do you maintain your ambient temperature at during this time?

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Just an FYI - ball pythons do not brumate. :gj:

Well you can see I know nothing about breeding...LOL
I may try someday as I have several local friends who have bred successfully who will help me :gj:

In Georgia Deb can get away with that.

OTOH up here in balmy WV it's going down to below 60*F tonight. Nowhere in the house could maintain 86*F ambient without supplemental heat.

Yeah it all makes sense. Right now we our temps have been over 100 for the last week, and expected to be that way for another week :weirdface

Can't have my snakes that hot, so got to run the a/c :gj:

My cool side usually stays around 80 (give or take a few degrees). My warm side stays around 90 from a lamp & an UTH.

I'm not looking forward to brumation with my corns :/ I have been under the impression that 88 degrees is a good number for them. I'm in a similar boat as Deborah is actually. My reptile room sits at about 85 degrees durring the day time and about 79-80 at night. Since my ambients are so high I run under tank heaters on a piece of glass that goes onto a shelf and gets shared by the 2 tubs that are on that rack. The UTH will provide a consistant 89 sometimes upto 91 tops for belly heat in the back of my tubs while over half of the other tub will be a bit higer then my ambient room temp. I've tweeked it here and there but I'm starting to think that as long as they dont get cold mine will chose to be on the side with the best hide regardless of temperature. When winter gets here I'll just turn on my space heater for the room but I also have several 150W bulbs blasting for my Chameleons and they seem to radiate heat. My biggest concern is how I am going to provide a temperature drop to help induce breeding.

When I had a room full, I provided NO hot spot, and maintained the entire room at around 86 degrees.

Now that I only have 1, and it's in a room with different species I offer him a variant of 80-90 degrees.

Cool 83, warm 88, and hot spot 92.

82-85 on the warmer side, 72-75 on the cooler side, with a hot spot of around 90-92. Both of my girls are in tanks right now, but I plan on moving Chelsea to my rack once I finish it.

hot spot 90-91 ambient 86 warm 79-80 cool

I keep the back of the tubs at 90 and the front of the tub is mostly ambient temperature ranges from 75-82. I don’t drop temp or raise temp throughout the year and have not had any issues with respiratory or breeding.

That's great to hear about the breeding! Do you first attempt breeding in season or have you attempted year round? I'm totally guessing but I think that you could just house the male with the female off and on and eventually the female will be receptive but I'm not sure. I do know the big timers seem to take temps very seriously.

My ambient temps run from 78-84 depending on the season. In the summer I drop my hot spots to 86. In the winter I raise them up to 88.

Right now I have mine at 85 on the Hot side. and 75 one the cool side. However, Im new and learning to snake keeping. I have been told i have the wrong temps but I have also been told my temps are fine.

Just curious, for those of you that run your temps more on the high side. Do you feel that you have less feeding/refusal problems?

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Originally Posted by Sonny1318

Just curious, for those of you that run your temps more on the high side. Do you feel that you have less feeding/refusal problems?

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Actually, I just bumped up my temps recently (ambient used to be 77-80, are now 82-82. Kept 89 degree hot spot) and every one has been eating. Even the picky guys...

Meant to type 82-83*

82-84 ambient. Heat tape is set up for winter (or January lol). My 2 new big guys haven't ate yet, but they are doing well, and all have great sheds.