Rethinking belly heat

[Hypnotic Exotic]

I have a great deal of respect for the Barkers and the experience they bring. They are well respected in and out of the hobby most reciently being experts called on by USARK.

I also know they use the very best in controls and instrumentation. I am sure if she says 81 she means 81 correct. not 79-83 someplace. There is a high cost to get precision. Keeping a room at 82 perfectly is hard I would like to know what the exact range they have is. I have read lots of the comments they have made about the rising temps in the hobby Royals in particular. I believe them and I am sure they have it to work but I am also completely sure it is not as easy as it sounds.

Personally with a small collection I have each animal individually adjusted temp wise some have 88º hot spots and lower cool end temps others have higher based on how an individual acts and the shifts they make. All my animals use both hides typically 70%/30% splits. Although I trust the validity of the experience I am not sure it is prudent to suggest it across the board as signs of problems are not easy to spot for the inexperienced.

I've been thinking about this some more and I have to respectfully disagree with the claim that VPI is keeping their building EXACTLY 81 degrees. That's not possible due to how A/C units work. In order to keep it exactly that temperature, the A/C unit would have to cycle on and off constantly which would burn up the compressor prematurely (my dad is a retired A/C guy so I've a bit of knowledge on this ) With heat, you could get closer by putting it on a proportional thermostat. However, due to heat rising, you are not going to be able to keep every part of the building at one temperature no matter whether it's time for the A/C or time for the heater. The higher you go, the hotter it is. The areas closest to walls/windows are going to be hotter/cooler depending on the weather outside. Another point here is these snakes are not completely helpless when it comes to regulating their temperatures. As has already been mentioned, they can raise their temperature 2-3 degrees when digesting. Females are able to adjust temperatures when incubating eggs. I talked to my vet quite a while back (former zoo vet with a ton of experience with snakes) and he said they are also able to adjust their metabolism which explains why they can fast so long. Obviously this also can come into play when it comes to temperature tolerance. Personally I plan to ramp down belly heat and ramp up ambient heat but I plan to do it very slowly. I agree with Deborah that this is not for first time snake owners. This is something I'm going to be doing very cautiously and will be monitoring the animals very closely. But if I get rid of the fire hazard, lower electric bill except during the winter and stop having females hit the dreaded "wall", then the experiment will be well worth it. If animals start going off feed and causing problems, then I just start raising things back up and abandon it. I really do not see the downside with trying this as long as it's done cautiously.