Couple Questions

[uTiRambo]

Hey everybody

My room is around 70-73F, do you think I'm going to need an additional heatpad to keep the cool side above 80F? And also the breeder I'm buying my ball from is going to switch her over to f/t, how many f/t rats should I order at a time?

Thanks
Alex

[Chuck1289]

Ok i can't really answer your feeding question but i can answer the heat question.If your temps are too low then you may need to get a ceramic heat lamp (These produce heat not light).The only problem is that it sucks up the humidity and you should use a thermostat with it but that will sort the temp.

[Chuck]

It really depends no how big the enclosure you are using is. With the correct size enclosure and correct size heater you should be a able to keep your thermal gradient with one heat source, at least that is the ideal situation. meaning 90 degrees on one end and 80 on the other. That is a very reasonable room temp if you can keep it at that year round.

As far as F/T rodents goes I tend to buy more than I need, that said they stay good for about six months give or take so you could do the math and get yourself a ball park idea of how many you will use in that time frame.

Chuck

[Argentra]

My home stays around 80 in summer and 72 in winter... so I have a second UTH on the cool side of the BP enclosures on another thermostat. It's pricey to do it that way...but it's the ONLY way. That, and the fact that I needed space, was the reason I decided to put my adult BPs in a rack. To be able to have many enclosures on the same two thermostats.

As for FT, buy enough for at least a couple months. Some places will do packs as small as 25-50, and it all depends on how many snakes you have and what sizes they eat.
I also have a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, which really helps since it lets me re-seal the rodents and have them keep up to a year.

[uTiRambo]

Wow I can't believe I'm going to have to buy another thermostat. I'm not sure if I can afford to get my ball now.. that's going to be like another 150.00$!

[Argentra]

For the cool side, you can get away with a Johnson or Ranco stat for $80. They still work just as well, they're just on/off style instead of proportional.

[SatanicIntention]

What type of thermostat do you have for the warm side? If it's a high quality digital(at least a Johnson or Ranco), then you can get a Lutron Credenza dimmer from Home Depot/Lowe's, plug your COOL side flexwatt or whatever into the DIMMER, then plug the DIMMER into the THERMOSTAT(bolding so no confusion). Dial the dimmer down about 2/3-3/4 of the way, and the thermostat will generally keep it at that temperature(within 1-2 degrees or so). You shouldn't have to adjust the dimmer again(I said shouldn't, but just watch it).

I've done it this way quite a bit when I had a quarantine snake out in the living room or something during winter and one piece of flexwatt wasn't enough. The dimmers can take up to 300 watts, so you're not going to hurt it with one piece of flexwatt.

If you need a picture, I can take one.

[Somed00d]

uTiRambo, I noticed your from the toronto area so I thought I would give you a local opinion. what I usually do is pickup my frozen rats at the mississauga reptile expo, its one of the cheaper places to buy feeders locally. (1.60-1.70 for medium rats vs 4.00-6.00 at my local store) You can also talk to the vendors and buy from them directly without the expo. I buy mine from rodentkings.com usually.
Unless your snake goes off food you should be able to use up about 20 rats before they start getting bad.

As for a second thermostat SatanicIntention has a good cheap idea. I have done it before and it works.

Richard