Cold Weather Prep: What do you do?

[dakski]

Fall and winter are coming soon and I'd like to keep my habitat as BP friendly as possible. Ambient heat and humidity are what I struggle with most. I live in the Southern U.S. so temps and humidity aren't an issue during the warm months, but it gets very dry and VERY cold here when winter hits. To save on heating costs (plus I enjoy the cold) my living space sits around 65F or so. I know that's way too cold for my pythons. In the past I used a ceramic heating element for ambient heat but I could almost never keep the humidity up. This year I'm thinking of applying some heat tape to the cold side of the viv (a plastic storage tub) to keep it at its ~84F range. I've never done this before or really seen it done so I have no idea if that's going to work how I hope it does.

I'd like to know what your winter prep is like--how do you keep your numbers right when the temps plummet? Any and all tips will help!

You are using tubs? I would definitely consider heat tape for the cool side. Set it to 80F or so with a thermostat and you should be golden there. Then set heat tape on the hot side to 88-89F with another, or the same thermostat, if a dual temp thermostat. How big are the plastic storage tubs? You always put some heat tape towards the middle and set for 83-84F as well. However, again, you need a thermostat there too. The heat tape is cheap, the thermostats are what cost the money. However, if you keep multiple snakes together, you can use one thermostat for each zone with multiple plus to keep temps consistent in all tubs.

I live in CT and we've been having some pretty brutal winters with days in the 10F range or below and wind.

I keep all my reptiles in the finished basement as it is very well insulated and is also heated and cooled.

I have all Boaphile Plastics tanks (3 6'X2' and 4 3'X2' all stacked on top of each other - the 4 3'X2's are 2 6'X2's with a divider in the middle and RHP and Heat tape on both sides). They are incredibly well insulated and even with printless newspaper as substrate, when it's 20% humidity in the "reptile room," I easily keep my Ball Python and Boa tanks over 50% on their own. I spray every other day with warm water to keep humidity north of 60%.

I would consider spraying warm water in the tubs every couple of days to keep humidity up.

Additionally, I over-do the heating elements in my enclosures. I have medium heat tape on the right side (cool side) that only kicks in if the cool sides drop below 77F for my Boa and BP (this basically doesn't run all summer). On the hot sides and in all the 3X2's, I have an RHP and heat tape that work off the same thermostat to maintain proper temps on the hot side. I like redundant heating and belly heat and then neither works too hard or for too long. That tanks are so well insulated, that when it's 66-68F in the reptile room, which it is much of the winter, my animals are easily happy and warm with proper temps. Also, by "over-heating" the tanks and having each element doing very little work, my electric bill is much better.

The thermostats do 90% of the work with an occasional adjustment of 1F or so if room temps change dramatically.

Again, IMO, too many heating elements is better than too few. AS LONG AS YOU ARE USING A THERMOSTAT, and an appropriate one at that, the thermostat should adjust and keep temps where they need to be. In my case, the heating elements barely run in the summer (73-74F in the room) and run together, and not all the time to say the least, in the winter.

I hope someone else joins in the convo who is using tubs and maybe has some other ideas. I have had PVC cages for a while, but the Boaphiles blow my mind at how well they keep heat and humidity in. I have heard similar sentiment from people who have AP cages as well, and recently heard good things about Reptile Basics cages too.

I have no experience with either of the latter cage manufacturers so I cannot comment or compare them to what I have. I know the tanks I have now are far superior to molded PVC tanks that I used to have.

I recommend considering another type of caging, or hearing what others have to say about the tub setup. However, it cannot hurt, IMO, to run more heat tape and different zones with different temps as long as they properly controlled by thermostat(s).

Again, spraying warm tap water into the tub as necessary to increase humidity isn't a terrible solution either. However, please use hot/warm tap water. Cold water will drastically and quickly change temps and hot tap water (110F) when misted, drops fast. When I mist in the winter with the hot tap water (110F or so), it seems to go into the tanks at 80-90F when sprayed with a fine mist. This produced almost zero change in temps while helping to raise humidity noticeably.

Finally, I also recommend getting Reptile Specific Heating Pads, like the kind they use for shipping reptiles. Normal heating pads/glove warmers, etc. can get way to hot. These are designed not to get too hot for reptiles.

Reptile Basics sells them: http://www.reptilebasics.com/heat-packs/

These are great in case of a power outage when it's cold. Cheap insurance.

I have a bunch in my storage area just in case, but also have a whole house generator (mainly for the reptiles and for freezer full of snake food) in case we lose power.

So, to answer your original question, what do I do to prepare for winter.

1. Check oil in generator and check propane levels.

2. Have reptile heat packs on hand.

3. Check in tank temps (as I normally do anyway) and adjust thermostats as necessary.

4. Have spray bottle on hand in case I need to up humidity

I know this was a long way to go a short distance, but I hope it was helpful.

Good luck!