Rack temperature questions.

[SGB_74]

my goal was to just purchase a rack and be done with the heater. but it seems as though i'd need both heating elements to properly house my animals. so i'd rather just heat the room as VPI does and not worry about racks and flexwatt all together then. thanks for all the input guys.

[Kaorte]

Well either way you are still going to need a strip of flexwatt to create a hot spot. If you just heat the room, you wouldn't be giving the snake a thermal gradient.

I would say get the rack. It will be more convenient in the long run.

[SGB_74]

yea i understand what you're sayin and i do want to get the rack but man i think my bill is gonna be out the roof it already costs enough to run the heater LOL now a heater and a rack. i understand the thermal gradient situation but when emailing VPI they emailed me back stating

"We don't have to heat or cool very much (most of the year, anyway) to keep our rooms at 78 at night and 80 in the day. We have found that our snakes in our building do best at those temps without any additional basking heat.

We have used heat tapes and heat pads to create substrate-heated basking areas in the past. However, after about 10 years of experimentation we realized that our snakes simply do better without any supplemental heat. The one exception is that we do provide post-ovulatory gravid boas and pythons with substrate heat, not too much, but an area of heated cage floor that's about 86 to 89 degrees.

There are several problems with substrate heat, but the most common problem of which most keepers are unaware is that substrate heat significantly raises the temperature of the air in most cages. This can cause a variety of problems relating to feeding and breeding. One way to avoid the problem is to not leave substrate heat turned on all day--put it on a timer and use it only a couple of hours daily.

We have had no problems doing as we have done. We have good growth and excellent breeding. We do feed the snakes less often and smaller meals than when we kept them warmer, but that also means they defecate less often--it's all good!"

Dave

so i guess the "mumbo jumbo" about basking spots isnt really a necessity unless you have a gravid female, which i dont have intentions on breeding so it wouldnt apply to me. still i'll check into a rack system, because i am tired of stacking and unstacking these tubs like building blocks LOL

[dr del]

Hi,

There are many ways these animals can be kept.

Each one has different conditions that need to be met for it to work for the animal though.

We recommend the system we do for a couple of basic reasons;

It will work to keep your animal alive and healthy through the first, most intense, learning period. It doesn't rely on you being able to spot subtle clues that all is not well or know how to quickly fix problems in an emergency.

It can be created with only a small financial outlay - this is mainly because a lot of people get sold a lot of very expensive junk when they buy a snake from a bad petstore and may have limited funds left for the more important items nobody told them they needed.

So we explain a system that lets the snake have access to the temp range it might need to cover most eventualities, the humidity requirements for shedding and a feeding regime that will make it relatively simple to work out how much the snake needs to grow and thrive.

The big breeders and people who have the experience to spot the subtle clues to any problems however are able to change the systems they use and know if it was for the better or worse before it causes the animal any serious problems.

Dave and Tracy Barker know more about these animals than I probably ever will if I live to be a hundred.

They know how to make their system work and monitor it through observation constantly.

The part of his email I thought was important that you did not seem to mention was the line;

We do feed the snakes less often and smaller meals than when we kept them warmer, but that also means they defecate less often--it's all good!"

Now, I'm assuming, this is because the different heat levels significantly affect the digestive process.

That process is essentially a race between the animal digesting the prey and the prey rotting inside the animal - if digestion slows a larger meal may decompose to such a level the snake either regurges it or suffers serious problems.

If the snakes body temperature is lower then pretty much every system will be running at a different rate than those seen with our system - this coupled with the above is probably also a major factor in the decision to feed less often and the resulting reduction of waste.

Now re-consider this line from your post;

so i guess the "mumbo jumbo" about basking spots isnt really a necessity unless you have a gravid female, which i dont have intentions on breeding so it wouldnt apply to me.

You do, hopefully, have intentions of feeding the animal.

If you decided to use their system without understanding all the other factors that have to be changed to make it work then you could end up with every snake regurging or bloating on you. Or simply refusing to eat.

There is no "mumbo jumbo" involved - he plainly told you he spent ten years experimenting to arrive at this method. Before trying to copy his sytem you really do need to ask him a lot of questions to make sure you understand not only the basic idea but the concepts and reasons behind it and how to determine if it either is or isn't working for your animals before it becomes a problem.

In short it's not if you can build a rack, read a thermometer and buy a snake that is the determining factor but you looking yourself in the eye and asking if you are Dave Barker enough to make it work.


dr del