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[Pythonfriend]

3 water dishes and just 10% humidity?

even if the top is open, thats a bit hard for me to believe. measuring humidity is notoriously difficult, temperature is easy, so while cheap thermometers often do their job just fine, even higher priced hygrometers can be off by large margins. my room never gets below 30% except when its really cold outside and im heating. and thats just me, and a window that is partially open all the time, and some plants. it depends on where you live, the local climate, plants in the room also make a difference, but i am inclined to blame the 10% on a broken hygrometer.

that being said, the humidity is probarbly too low, and restricting air flow by adding some cardboard wrapped in aluminium foil to the top is a good idea. if humidity then doesnt go up immediately but stays at 10%, the hygrometer is broken for sure. misting down with a spray bottle also helps, again, if the hygrometer doesnt respond, its broken.

bump up the size of the food items. two guidelines are: the girth of the food item should match the widest girth of the BP, that means the food item will be larger than the head of the BP. the second one, for young BPs like the one you have, requires something like a kitchen scale that measures in grams. you can get them cheaply, a kitchen scale with a bowl that has a resolution of 1 gram or 2 grams and that goes up to 2000 or 5000 grams is just fine. then, the rule for young BPs is 10-15% of the body weight of the BP every 5-7 days. its not set in stone, but it should give you a general idea. mouse pinkies are too tiny. with your BP at 109 grams, a mouse somewhere between 10 and 20 grams will be fine. thats a young adult mouse. BPs dislocate their lower jaw and stretch their neck for every appropriately sized meal, and the food item is always much bigger than the head of the BP, its normal.

[AlexisFitzy]

I think he's already recovered from his prolapse. I scanned through the thread and it doesn't have much about feeding during the process. I'll have to do more research on that one. But if he does end up prolapsing again (hopefully not!) but if so there a plenty if threads on the site that will help you with it. I'm going to see if any have any feeding schedules for when their snakes were recovering from the prolapse.


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[AlexisFitzy]

Also I wanted to ask is he peeing & popping regularly?


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[Pythonfriend]

damn, 8 more responses came in while i wrote my first response

about the prolapse problem: i dont think small food items will help. when you feed small, they just keep it in and keep condensing it.

so lets say you feed an undersized meal every week, the BP will take it in and condense it, just like a garbage truck with a built-in condenser, and the BP will go every 2 months or so, and it will still be a big pile when it finally happens.

i dont know what can be done, maybe there is some sort of laxative for reptiles, or maybe adding fibers to the diet works somehow, but i dont think cutting down on the diet will help. with mammals its easy: what you put in will come out just a day later. but thats just not true for BPs, they might not poop for months while being fed each week. trying to control what comes out the back end by controlling what goes into the front end just doesnt work. and maybe the hair of the adult mice can be helpful, i dont know.

[bcr229]

Another trick to bumping up the humidity is to not only wrap the tank lid with either foil or plastic rap, but also place a damp (not dripping wet) washcloth on the lid and under the foil/wrap. This helps keep up humidity without turning the floor into a wet mess.

Also, how are you heating the enclosure? If you are using only a heat lamp or ceramic heat emitter (CHE), and not an under-tank heater (UTH), that will also dry out the tank. If you end up replacing the lamp or CHE with a UTH make sure you regulate it with a thermostat or you can end up burning your snake, yes the surface gets that hot.

Finally, where are you located? If you're in a hot desert region and/or running the A/C where your house humidity is low, you're also going to have to fight to keep humidity up in a tank.

[noctevena]

So I picked him up some coconut fiber and coconut husk substrate, and a squirt bottle. I'm going to change it tonight and make sure humidity stays up.

Also, I've been dying to know. What's it mean when you type 1.0 pythons, .1 king snake, etc. Why the decimal?

[AlexisFitzy]

So I picked him up some coconut fiber and coconut husk substrate, and a squirt bottle. I'm going to change it tonight and make sure humidity stays up.

Also, I've been dying to know. What's it mean when you type 1.0 pythons, .1 king snake, etc. Why the decimal?

1.0 = male
0.1 = female
0.1.0 = (the 1 in the middle) means unsexed.


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[noctevena]

I just checked it, and its at about 25-30%. There's 3 bowls filled with water. The tank is glass with a screen sliding top. He has a daytime 100 watt zoo-med bulb and a nighttime infrared 100 watt bulb. They alternate heated sides of the tank. Also I have 2 hygrometers and theyre both working because when I spray it goes up. I live in a very, very dry area.

As for the feeding, once again, he was fed fuzzies, then prolapsed, then was fed a fuzzy again, and then prolapsed again. Im worried about feeding him too large of a meal and having it happen again. What size food would you recommend given he is 109 grams?

3 water dishes and just 10% humidity?

even if the top is open, thats a bit hard for me to believe. measuring humidity is notoriously difficult, temperature is easy, so while cheap thermometers often do their job just fine, even higher priced hygrometers can be off by large margins. my room never gets below 30% except when its really cold outside and im heating. and thats just me, and a window that is partially open all the time, and some plants. it depends on where you live, the local climate, plants in the room also make a difference, but i am inclined to blame the 10% on a broken hygrometer.

that being said, the humidity is probarbly too low, and restricting air flow by adding some cardboard wrapped in aluminium foil to the top is a good idea. if humidity then doesnt go up immediately but stays at 10%, the hygrometer is broken for sure. misting down with a spray bottle also helps, again, if the hygrometer doesnt respond, its broken.

bump up the size of the food items. two guidelines are: the girth of the food item should match the widest girth of the BP, that means the food item will be larger than the head of the BP. the second one, for young BPs like the one you have, requires something like a kitchen scale that measures in grams. you can get them cheaply, a kitchen scale with a bowl that has a resolution of 1 gram or 2 grams and that goes up to 2000 or 5000 grams is just fine. then, the rule for young BPs is 10-15% of the body weight of the BP every 5-7 days. its not set in stone, but it should give you a general idea. mouse pinkies are too tiny. with your BP at 109 grams, a mouse somewhere between 10 and 20 grams will be fine. thats a young adult mouse. BPs dislocate their lower jaw and stretch their neck for every appropriately sized meal, and the food item is always much bigger than the head of the BP, its normal.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh! Thanks

1.0 = male
0.1 = female
0.1.0 = (the 1 in the middle) means unsexed.


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[AlexisFitzy]

Your welcome


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[noctevena]

I live in a dry part of California. Im using over the tank 100W bulbs, because I read that under the tank heaters can be very dangerous. If I'm doing over the tank heaters how will I put foil on without burning it? The 2 bulbs cover nearly the entire tank and they switch automatically every 12 hours.

Another trick to bumping up the humidity is to not only wrap the tank lid with either foil or plastic rap, but also place a damp (not dripping wet) washcloth on the lid and under the foil/wrap. This helps keep up humidity without turning the floor into a wet mess.

Also, how are you heating the enclosure? If you are using only a heat lamp or ceramic heat emitter (CHE), and not an under-tank heater (UTH), that will also dry out the tank. If you end up replacing the lamp or CHE with a UTH make sure you regulate it with a thermostat or you can end up burning your snake, yes the surface gets that hot.

Finally, where are you located? If you're in a hot desert region and/or running the A/C where your house humidity is low, you're also going to have to fight to keep humidity up in a tank.