hi this is keith.I have a question for all of you.I am building a room on the side of my house.It will be a reptile, living , and office room.I was told it is essential for snakes to stay between 80 and 85 degrees to make them the happiest.I also breed beardies which will be in the same room.I am the reptile person that likes them all and i want a variety of reptiles.How can i keep the snake cages at this temperature for maximum habitat.Everybody that i have talked to says figure out which kind of reptile you like and specialize in it.I much rather have a variety can anybody help me with my dilema? thank you keith
Well, I guess it depends on what kind of snake. I think you're best keeping the ambient temperature in the room as low as the cool end of the coolest reptile you wanna keep. For corn snakes, that's low-to-mid 70s on the cool end. For beardies that's around 80 or so. If you plan to keep both, I'd say stick around the 70 degrees ambient temp for the room, then just give a lil more heat to each enclosure as they need it. For corns you can just have a rack system with heat tape down the back, so each tub has a warmer and cooler end. For beardies, nice big Active UVHeat over the warm end of their enclosures. In a perfect world, yeah, you'd like to build a room specificially for each species, but money usually prohibits this, lol. But yeah, I'd say keep the room's ambient temperature to that of the coolest cool end of what you intend to keep. Usually around 70-75 degrees. It's essential for digestion to have 80-85 degrees for snakes, but they'll wanna cool end in case they get a bit warm (which is why I suggest the heat tape and a rack system). If you go with tanks for the snakes, just get under-tank heating pads You'll have to take pics and let us know how the construction goes as you build
thank you very much axe that is the most info i got out of anybody.I appreciate the help and i will post the progress as i go.
Hey no problem. It'll be interesting to see how you do this, what potential problems you may face and how you overcome them. I'm currenlty looking to convert our shed (about 16'x12'x8') into a reptile room. All of our animals will live there though, not just reptiles, except for the beardies (which will live in the house) and the iguanas (who already have their outdoor enclosure). But it'll house leopard geckos, viper geckos, corn snakes, hamsters, and some frogs. The problem right now is trying to keep it cool without spending a fortune on an expensive AC system. Right now the ambient temp inside the shed is about 5-10 degrees higher than it is outside the shed (which often goes up to 90 or 100 degrees).
hey axe i am curious on how you put tape on a rack system?I am not sure were you would put it.also i just got done puting up the block foundation.My garage will be 29 foot by 30 foot and the reptile room will be 21 foot by 27 foot wide. thanks keith
I am honestly not sure, lol. I've never messed with it myself. I'd suggest E-Mailing Big Apple Herp and they'll give you all the details. They've always been real helpful when I've spoken to 'em in the past. Or, contact a couple of the big corn snake breeders. Most of 'em use racks when they're producing corns on a larger scale. They'll be able to give you advice, and things to watch out for, etc.
Axe, I would love to see your set up! I cant believe! snakes on your back porch, iguanas in your back yard, beardies inside! I couldn't imagine that. We have a couple months where it's actually warm enought to take a herp outside. Your yard would be cool so see. If I'm ever in Florida, I'll stop by!
Sure, go for it. It's not as exotic as it sounds, but it is cool sitting out there in the evening watchin' all the herps as I sip a beer
I'm sure Axe's enclosures are pretty secure. I would hope that any thing out side would be pretty tough. Axe is a smart guy, I'm sure he's done it well!
Actually, it has caused a bit of a problem in the past. Due to the fact that Annie's a very obsessive nose-rubber, we had to avoid the metal mesh to cover the walls of the iguana enclosures. So, we went with a very tough porch screen - the same type that Skittles had been crawling all over for 2 years with no problems. Annie eventually managed to rip a hole in the screen, and they both got out. We got Annie back after a couple of weeks, but Skittles is still MIA - although we do get occasional sightings reported to us, at which point we run out with to try and get him back When building an outdoor enclosure for Iguanas, there's a LOT of things to take into consideration (especially when there maybe extra things to think about like the nose rubbing) and it can be difficult to try and cater to all the requirements adequately first time. At one point, Annie actually dug a hole about 2ft down, then went 6ft across to tunnel under the (solid) wall on the back of the enclosure to freedom. We had to dig out a large area under the enclosure, and lay down concrete tiles, then fill it all back in with the soil. Now I think we've got it sorted out, all potential escape routes secured, and we've had no problems for the past few months. Other than that, we've had no escapees
Not just an attempt, a success! And Cheri's son was telling me he spotted Skittles in the tree next door this morning... (3 months after he escaped)... So, fingers crossed we might actually get him back soon, lol.
Cheri saw him again today, so it looks like he might be wanting back in, lol. I'm not surprised, it's getting a lil nippy outside these days. At least we know he's managed to survive so far, and he's looking big n' fat. He runs like crazy though when he knows we've spotted him, so he's gonna be tough to catch!
Why not have a catch the iggy party You buy the beer and have all the friends and neighbors over to corral and catch the escapee
lol, kinda like a treasure hunt? Hey, we could put a backpack on Annie with a 6-pack in it, and release her into the neighbourhood. Whoever catches her wins the 6-pack lol
You may be on to something there I might come all the way down there to FL for a weekend for a party like that
hehehehe.... We'll have to see if we can organise something for around August... try to align it with the Daytona show (or maybe one of the Tampa/Orlando shows)... kill a coupla birds with one stone so to speak
for the temps you might want to try just putting a low watt (or higher watt) regular light over one end of the enclosure for a higher cool end and keep your room at about 70-75 degree's. If this has already been said just ignore me. lol
