Humidity

[jotay]

Hello to everyone,
I am a new baby ball python owner and I have a problem keeping the humidity up. Seems it stays right around 25-30% if I mist it will go up for a short time or if it is raining out it will raise.
The tank is 30"X 12" with fir bark on bottom. I have under tank heater and light on top of screen with 50 watt red light . I have covered 2/3 of the top with plastic wrap. There is a large dog water dish in tank.
Hot side is 90-95 cool side is 80-84. night time drops to cool side 75-80 and hot side 84-90. Ozzy has two hide boxes one on hot side which he never uses and one on cooler side which he seems to never come out.
He is about 22" long and I have feed him one large pinkie which he ate right away. I have had him going on 3 weeks.
My concern is the heat in our house is so dry and sucking all humidity out of cage
any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

[Wizill]

the lamp is most likely drying the tank out, try getting another heating pad and ditching the lamp. just put one on each end, one on low and one on medium or high.

[Wizill]

oh and if he's 22 inches long, he can probably eat a mouse. yum yum.

[steelsack]

Check out a few of the other posts on humidity....repti-flo, and others. Learn about the magical, wonderful world of duct tape! Me and Wizill use pumps in our water dishes, check our photo galleries for pics on tanks.
Xaero stays in his new hide (not in pic) on the cool end, too. I don't worry about it, he knows best what temp he needs at what time. I do know that he comes out in the wee hours, tho. Stuff's always moved around! Sounds like you and I have new snakes that just want to chill for awhile. Bought mine on the 19th and he's finally starting to make more appearances.........saw him drink!
Also I feed mine small rats. not much diff in size than a mouse, first one I gave hadn't opened it's eyes yet, but did have fur. Today he ate his first eyes-open rat.
He's 20" and has had no trouble with feeding every 5 days.
Hope any of this helps.......

Ball Pythons can eat hopper mice right out of the egg, so you definitely need to up his feeding. Heat lights dry out the ambient humidity very quickly, so I would just get a human heat pad from wal-mart (withOUT auto-shut off).......if you still can't keep up good humidity, try switching him onto cypress mulch. This holds humidity better than any other substrate......you could also ditch the glass tank and get a rubbermaid to house your snake in.

[Jesús]

You can also try a humidifier. I bought the "Tropic-Aire" humidifier and air exchanger with a air pump and it have work more than great for me.

oh and if he's 22 inches long, he can probably eat a mouse.

my bp, (Cherile) is 26 and she eats adult mice.
Hope this helps you a little
Jesús

[BallKingdom]

Place the water dish over the light, might help.

[jotay]

thanks guys!
Also how can I tell if my snake has mites??

[Jesús]

one way of knowing is that after you play with your snake fr a while, you are oing to have some in your hands or look for white spot in your snake and maybe damage scales.
Jesús

[Tigergenesis]

Like Jesús I too use the Tropic-Aire humidifier w/ air pump. Works great and very quiet (especially with a good pump).

My 22 inch BP eats 2 adult mice per feeding (got a lot of adult mice to use up before moving up in size of prey).