Quote Originally Posted by cchardwick View Post
OK, so a good hot spot temp is 88F-89F. And you incubate eggs at 88F-89F. Why not just keep the entire snake room at 88F and crank up the humidity? You could eliminate the belly heats, hot spots, heck you could even get rid of all of your incubators and just put the eggs in a shoe box in the same room. You could even keep your rodents in there too. Seems like it would be much more simplistic. I'm sure in their natural environment they don't really have a 'hotspot' and from what I've heard you really don't need a temperature cycling of ambient or hotspot. Just wondering if anyone has ever tried it? Seems like you could just throw snakes and eggs and rodents anywhere in the room in any type of enclosure, just keep it all at 88F...
In theory what you say will work. I am totally on ambient temps in my snake room. The eggs still go in the incubator though. Even if heat does not cut on that often temperature and humidity fluctuations are easier to control that way. In the room I keep temps between 84 and 88 in general. It is my belief that 89 is pushing it. I have seen the beginnings of heat related stress at 89. I also would not recommend bumping the humidity up in the room as a whole unless you live in a very low humidity environment. High humidity plus little air circulation promotes mold growth in the room itself. The tubs themselves should boost humidity to the proper levels. As to cost, the few months my heat is actually on it is about a $20 increase in my electric bill.