How much does it cost you to house a snake?

[Regius_049]

I'm with rufretic on this one; it's literally baffling to see some of these figures and even more baffling to see that the majority of people spend $150+ per animal on just housing.

I don't think this is surprising at all. There is an old adage that says: "The enclosure will almost always cost more than the animal itself." Perhaps I am showing my age here.

Let's look at this from a bare minimum perspective, you would need:

1. A tub with latches, assuming you're housing a new baby: $2.78

2. Paper towels for bottom: $6.86

3. Under-tank heater (heat tape + connector): $2.20 + $3.48

4. Thermostat: $18.99

5. Polypropylene Hide boxes: $5.98

6. Water dish: $2.09

7. thermometer / hygrometer: $12.99

Total: $55.37

This is being as economical as I possibly can with a new baby snake and money spent on the setup only. I have not included the snake itself, food, cleaning supplies, potential shipping fees, or any other miscellaneous items that always come up when you do any project. This also assumes the snake is in a warm enough room and is heated sufficiently by the UTH itself. Caring for reptiles can be very inexpensive and relatively speaking, they require little care in comparison to other animals. That's why people can manage to have 100+ snakes, but the equivalent in other animals would be....difficult. However, the average person doesn't have this many (pretty sure there's another poll where most have a single snake or a few) and thus spend more on a nice setup as the snake grows. Tubs are great for breeders because they are economical in terms of space, but if you only have one or a couple animals, most keepers want them to look nice and be visible. They will also, over time, evolve to better setups that include cages like animal plastics (minimum $100-$200 investment) and thermostats like Herpstat, which run around $75-100 per probe depending on which model you get. In addition, many new keepers purchase a glass tank because that's what the pet store recommends, which needless to say, are more expensive than a $2.00 tub. These factors combined make it extremely easy to exceed the $150 threshold.

It baffles me that a ball python could be properly housed for < $25. Though, if you had a cheaper rack setup for hatchlings running on a single thermostat and divided the cost among say, a dozen snakes, you could probably manage it.