Snabitat Build

[ROSIEonFIRE]

No, I'm in Wisconsin.

Be advised that qualified herp vets know very very much about medical issues, and typically know no more about husbandry than they've read written by others who have little to no first hand experience with husbandry. Perhaps your vet has kept many ball pythons both with and without UVB throughout all their life stages and actually has some first hand experience, but I suspect that's not the case. Most people recommending UVB for ball pythons lean very heavily on the 'all reptiles benefit from UVB' claim, which is not based on evidence (as universal claims almost never are) and neglects the complications of actually providing UVB in a usable way in captivity.



Correct to some extent. For animals that actually need it, or even actually physically benefit from it in keeper-observable ways, it can be pretty complex. In these cases, it is worth figuring out and doing right.

It is simple insofar as it is completely unnecessary for the captive care of ball pythons, though complexity arises when internet commentators complicate the situation with unwarranted claims of its necessity. Every ball python that reached some captive longevity record was kept most of its life without UVB, and virtually every ball python bred in captivity was done so without the use of UVB, and there are no documented cases of physical illness in ball pythons caused even in part by a lack of UVB.

Yeah it is so obvious to me that it’s not necessary for healthy animals for exactly this reason. Yet when I posted on r/ballpthons that the benefits of UVB are disputed and that many many balls have been kept without it for years with no ill effects, my comment was removed for being wrong or offering dangerous advice! I’ve done some research on this issue and so far have decided that it seems worth providing but I definitely take your points about the fact that it must not be necessary otherwise all those no uvb snakes would be dead. And that lighting provision is multifactorial and we may not be providing the benefit we think we are. I’ll def continue to do research on this topic!


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