Ambient heat only is the best

[DennisM]

obviously, I am a proponent of ambient room heating. it's worked for me for a long time. equally obvious is that individual enclosure/rack heating has worked for a lot of people for a long time. for a host of reasons ambient room heating may not work or be a reasonable approach for many keepers. any change to husbandry, especially one as significant as this, should not be undertaken lightly. Josh did his homework on a couple of previous threads requesting feedback from those of us who use this approach and decided to give it a try. In his case, because he already had been using the more traditional methods, he is in a good position to fall back if necessary (don't get those geckos just yet Josh). not everything works for everyone, but I would encourage anyone thinking about this to give it a try. but you won't find me on a soapbox stating that it is better (no, no one is being accused of being on a soapbox!)

[JoshSloane]

I should also mention that I had my oil heater running for about 2 months, in addition the heat tape, before I went with ambient heat only. I wanted to make sure that I could control the ambient temps, before I solely relied on them.

[dr del]

Have you considered the temp needs during all stages of the breeding cycle? I know VPI change their setups for gravid females.

Also consider males may need different temps at this time.

[JoshSloane]

I will only be breeding boas this year. Never found a need to oscillate temps for boa breeding.

[DennisM]

I should also mention that I had my oil heater running for about 2 months, in addition the heat tape, before I went with ambient heat only. I wanted to make sure that I could control the ambient temps, before I solely relied on them.

good move, which also happens to be option #3. some folks do this as a permanent setup. bring ambient up to a certain point and then supplement as needed. I can see where this would be an especially useful approach for a collection that contains assorted species with differing heat requirements.

[JoshSloane]

Thanks Dennis. What sold me on ambient only was that after I got my ambient temperatures up to around 82-84, almost all of my snakes completely avoided using the 90 deg hot spot. Especially my boas, they avoided it like the plague.

I observed this behavior for multiple months, and after many feedings, my snakes still didn't use the hot spots.