Is It Possible to....

[SGB_74]

have a snake room and heat the ambient air in that room to a nice 80-88 degrees and house your animals properly in there (boas, pythons, corns etc...)..i've heard stories of individuals just heating a room to house their snakes in and never use flexwatt or any type of UTH device, and never had any type of sickness with their animals. has anyone else every tried this method of heating/housing and was it successful?

[Vypyrz]

I do it. I keep my snakes in a spare bedroom. I keep a space heater in there hooked up to a Johnson thermostat set at 81F and I have the probe tied close to the top of the shelves since heat rises. This keeps a fairly constant ambient temp for a cool side. I still run UTH's on each tub to provide a warm side. I haven't had any problems yet...

[Zach Spyker]

Lots of people use heated rooms mainly breeders or people with a lot of snakes , but you still need to create a thermal gradient by using an alternative heat source at the rear of the tub/tank/cage with heat tape/ panel/ cable.

if you heat the room to their desired warm temp there is no way the can thermoregulate to get cooler.

[Minja777]

I would think they couldn't thermoregulate properly being housed without a UTH of some sort or cooler side, either it's too cool and they have nowhere to warm up , or it's too hot and they can't cool down.....but I'd be interested to see what other more experienced people have to say about it.

[j_h_smith]

Many of the large breeders will heat the room and not the enclosure. I think it would depend on how many snakes you have and the size of the room. Keeping a large room with a dozen snakes, warm in the winter would be very expensive.

Jim Smith

[BallsUnlimited]

i keep my room at 80 or so degrees with a space heater when needed. summer time it stays that temp with out the heater and also use a hot spot of around 90 degrees at the back of the tub controlled by a thermostat. Has worked for me no problems at all.

[wolfy-hound]

I have done heating the room instead of individual cages. Right now, that's how it is for mine. You do still end up withs ome gradiant, unless you have a super well built room and good airflow. Since my cages back up against the wall, the backs tend to be higher or lower temps(according to winter/summer) and the fronts are the room temps. I spot-check temps often. The lower bins tend to be cooler, with the upper ones being hotter, but a fan to circulate the air helps keep that to a minimum.

It can work fine, if you are careful to check temps a lot.

[Minja777]

So you don't have any other heat source other than room temp? What do you keep the room at?
That's interesting, thanks for sharing

I have done heating the room instead of individual cages. Right now, that's how it is for mine. You do still end up withs ome gradiant, unless you have a super well built room and good airflow. Since my cages back up against the wall, the backs tend to be higher or lower temps(according to winter/summer) and the fronts are the room temps. I spot-check temps often. The lower bins tend to be cooler, with the upper ones being hotter, but a fan to circulate the air helps keep that to a minimum.

It can work fine, if you are careful to check temps a lot.

[RichsBallPythons]

VPI keeps their rooms at a 88-89 with not tub heating at all.

Can be done without problems. Most corn breeders keep a room temp of 82 and dont give tub heating either.

[SGB_74]

VPI keeps their rooms at a 88-89 with not tub heating at all.

Can be done without problems. Most corn breeders keep a room temp of 82 and dont give tub heating either.

thats the answer i was looking for. i see everyone saying i need some sort of UTH if i went this route of heating/housing but i know of some breeders who's animals do just fine and all they do is provide a stable ambient air temp.