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learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
Was it wild caught? 'cos you know if it is and I suspect it might be, ask what area it came from and put it back?

e: dodgy dudes selling stuff they found in the park is literally the only situation where this would be acceptable

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Al-Saqr
Nov 11, 2007

learnincurve posted:

Was it wild caught? 'cos you know if it is and I suspect it might be, ask what area it came from and put it back?

e: dodgy dudes selling stuff they found in the park is literally the only situation where this would be acceptable

I am not about to go on a dreamworks animation adventure of stealing my friends pet chameleon and driving 20 hours as it rides on my shoulders and we sing songs together and develop tour friendship on an epic journey full of ups and downs to find its exact area and then when it finds its family we say a tearful goodbye only for us to realize that our real family was the friends we made along the way.

It’s probably dodgy dudes selling stuff that they caught in the wild in the same country, it’s the only explanation I can think of why the thing only cost him around 60 bucks to buy.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

OK so, if it is a veiled, just be aware they're quite different to house than most other chameleons. They live in the desert, and lick dew and also get moisture from leafy greens. Most chameleons want high humidity environments; veiled do not. They do require a hot sun basking spot with UV. I housed mine in a large screened enclosure with big branches & leaves, a live plant, and he ate mostly live crickets and lettuce. I did coax him to eat waxworms occasionally. Juveniles are voraciously hungry, mine would easily house a dozen small crickets every day.

Also I would bet dollars to donuts there's exotic vets in Saudi Arabia: the question would be if they are open to the public, or just serve the needs of wealthy people with exotic pets who have connections, and, how far away they are from where your friend lives.

For example, this was the second hit on a google search: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nourfatayerji/?originalSubdomain=sa

A good way to find one is to call a local traditional vet (cats dogs) and ask for one that does reptiles. They usually know who is who in the area.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Nov 10, 2022

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



I got my beardie in her new terrarium but she seems really restless, I don't know why. It's bigger, a 2x2x4 instead of the 18x24x36 that she had before. Is there anything that they tend to like to play with? I've got a couple things for her to climb on, a water bowl that she mostly splashes on rather than drinking from, and a plastic t-rex skull I guess she could also climb on.

Bored
Jul 26, 2007

Dude, ix-nay on the oice-vay.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

I got my beardie in her new terrarium but she seems really restless, I don't know why. It's bigger, a 2x2x4 instead of the 18x24x36 that she had before. Is there anything that they tend to like to play with? I've got a couple things for her to climb on, a water bowl that she mostly splashes on rather than drinking from, and a plastic t-rex skull I guess she could also climb on.

I think she is waiting for you to give her an offering of appeasement to the t-rex skull. She is worried that the spirit of the ancestors will curse her new home.






yeah, I think they are more closely related to birds, but everyone thought they were giant lizards when I was a kid

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Bored posted:

yeah, I think they are more closely related to birds, but everyone thought they were giant lizards when I was a kid

under the current most recent taxonomic scheme birds are dinosaurs--they're the only surviving clade. Let that bake your noodle a bit the next time you buy a chickum sammich.

Beardies are lepidosaurs (squamates: snakes, lizards, iguanas, gila monsters, etc; and rhynocephalians, of which only tuataras exist today), which is a sister taxon to archosauria (dinosaurs/birds, pterosaurs, and crocodilians)

Nobody knows where the testudines (turtles) fit into all of this yet.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.
How bad is repticarpet for Leo’s? I use it and have for years and they are happy and healthy(for the most part) but I have been yelled at for using it and praised for using it, so I am asking goons.

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Dapper_Swindler posted:

How bad is repticarpet for Leo’s? I use it and have for years and they are happy and healthy(for the most part) but I have been yelled at for using it and praised for using it, so I am asking goons.

I don’t like it. It acts like a sponge for excrement and you can never get it truly clean IMO. I’ve also heard lots of horror stories of lizards like leopard geckos getting their nails stuck in it, pulling them out, breaking digits, etc.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Ok Comboomer posted:

I don’t like it. It acts like a sponge for excrement and you can never get it truly clean IMO. I’ve also heard lots of horror stories of lizards like leopard geckos getting their nails stuck in it, pulling them out, breaking digits, etc.

What would you recommend? I am thinking that faux rock “carpet”

Cowslips Warren
Oct 29, 2005

What use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?

Grimey Drawer
I used play sand when I had my leopards, and a plastic shoebox with wet moss for their sheds (and where they would lay eggs which I found after I saw some hatchlings running around).

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Dapper_Swindler posted:

What would you recommend? I am thinking that faux rock “carpet”

Tbh, when I kept leops I used paper towel. No muss, no fuss, just toss and replace. Doesn’t have to be something like Bounty, there’s lots of unbleached/etc stuff out there.

If you don’t like that look, I line my rabbit cage using unbleached flooring protection paper (not the stuff with additives or rosin in it) that cost something like $20 for a 200 ft x 4 ft roll. Every few weeks I’ll just cut myself a dozen rectangles and then have them at the ready for when I do cage cleans.

That stuff’s very heavy duty and way overkill for your needs, but something like unwaxed parchment or butcher paper or “craft” paper/etc from somewhere like Michaels will do the trick well. You just want something that looks good, won’t totally fall apart when wet/soiled, and doesn’t contain any chemicals or additives or shed any material that could harm your pets.

Another good option is tile or slate.

my cat is norris
Mar 11, 2010

#onecallcat

Big rolls of shipping paper can also be pretty cheap, if you start looking along those lines.

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

i've got a friend who pulled her hibiscus plant in a week or 2 ago to get it away from the cold and she found this lizard hanging out on it today: https://imgur.com/a/5qIn5Mx

she doesn't want to throw it out into the cold but also she doesn't know anything about wild lizard care and neither do i. this is central texas if that helps with identifying the lizard. she doesn't want to keep it as a pet or anything, what's the best process for reintroducing it to the outside world of her balcony and also should she feed it? what should she feed it if so? it's texas so "cold" here is like 55 degrees, how dangerous is that for this little fella?

Cowslips Warren
Oct 29, 2005

What use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?

Grimey Drawer
That looks like a green anole, so someone probably bought him from Petsmart for $8 and got sick of taking care of him. Or he's an escapee from a pet store. Either way he is not native to Texas and will probably freeze in that weather.

Asterite34
May 19, 2009



Cowslips Warren posted:

That looks like a green anole, so someone probably bought him from Petsmart for $8 and got sick of taking care of him. Or he's an escapee from a pet store. Either way he is not native to Texas and will probably freeze in that weather.

They seem to be present in the eastern third of Texas along the Gulf Coast, at least according to https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/anole/

So yeah, maybe a bit outside their normal range, but not automatically some invasive PetSmart escapee

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
He’s still going to freeze in that weather - even if he is native he’s missed his shot to find somewhere to bruminate. If she does not want to keep him then take him to a rescue.

Small Crickets and meal worms.

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
I’ve just seen a ball python called “Julius Squeezer” and you all need to know this.

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
Also because I suspect every single one of us is a girl/enby, if you haven’t been here already this is where all the women on the internet who keep lizards and snakes are, it’s a safe space and no transphobia tolerated.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/273004670573356

my cat is norris
Mar 11, 2010

#onecallcat

learnincurve posted:

I’ve just seen a ball python called “Julius Squeezer” and you all need to know this.

top tier snake name

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



learnincurve posted:

Also because I suspect every single one of us is a girl/enby, if you haven’t been here already this is where all the women on the internet who keep lizards and snakes are, it’s a safe space and no transphobia tolerated.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/273004670573356

Is that a theme? It seems like every woman at the vet has a beardie.

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!
is paper litter a good disposable substrate for a crestie bin? I want something with the ease of paper towel but I hear an uncushioned floor is dangerous in case of falls

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I have heard the same thing, and my doofuses fall a lot. I have an inch or two of sphagnum moss, which has the added benefits of being antimicrobial and holding moisture (so after you mist, it helps keep humidity up for a while). It's not very expensive either, I order compressed bricks of it online and one brick lasts like a year, it's about $25 (you do not need to buy it from a pet store, the stuff used for horticulture is the same thing). Just rip a few handfulls off, soak in water for a few seconds to get it moist, shove some in there and spread it around. They like to sleep under it too. I put a layer of paper towel down under the moss just to make it easier to peel up and throw away dirty moss that can otherwise kinda stick to the glass bottom but that's not really necessary.

If you don't want to do that and just want to use paper, I think you should put a layer of something soft underneath.

This is the sort of thing I mean, although I haven't bought this brand before. https://www.amazon.com/Kapecute-Sphagnum-Propagation-Maintain-Humidity/dp/B09W9632S9/ They say they don't add anything, it's just pure dry moss, that's what you're looking for.

This seems like a good price too https://www.amazon.com/Exo-Terra-Forest-Quarts-2-Pack/dp/B001B5DKN2/r although I didn't do the math, since it's being sold in quarts rather than grams :shrug: and also it doesn't say it's specifically sphagnum moss, it's "forest moss" so that's why I haven't bought it. It's probably fine though.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Dec 1, 2022

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Leperflesh posted:

I have heard the same thing, and my doofuses fall a lot. I have an inch or two of sphagnum moss, which has the added benefits of being antimicrobial and holding moisture (so after you mist, it helps keep humidity up for a while). It's not very expensive either, I order compressed bricks of it online and one brick lasts like a year, it's about $25 (you do not need to buy it from a pet store, the stuff used for horticulture is the same thing). Just rip a few handfulls off, soak in water for a few seconds to get it moist, shove some in there and spread it around. They like to sleep under it too. I put a layer of paper towel down under the moss just to make it easier to peel up and throw away dirty moss that can otherwise kinda stick to the glass bottom but that's not really necessary.

If you don't want to do that and just want to use paper, I think you should put a layer of something soft underneath.

This is the sort of thing I mean, although I haven't bought this brand before. https://www.amazon.com/Kapecute-Sphagnum-Propagation-Maintain-Humidity/dp/B09W9632S9/ They say they don't add anything, it's just pure dry moss, that's what you're looking for.

This seems like a good price too https://www.amazon.com/Exo-Terra-Forest-Quarts-2-Pack/dp/B001B5DKN2/r although I didn't do the math, since it's being sold in quarts rather than grams :shrug: and also it doesn't say it's specifically sphagnum moss, it's "forest moss" so that's why I haven't bought it. It's probably fine though.

Thank you. I’m pretty familiar with sphagnum, given that my other big area of interest is horticulture—particularly WRT bonsai and orchid keeping—and I know I
have at least one brick available at home.

In fact, 😅 I was actually hoping to find an alternative (maybe coco coir? although that stuff gets very dirtlike and dusty), as sphagnum harvesting is quite environmentally detrimental. I try to reuse my horticultural sphagnum as much as possible.

Ultimately if sphagnum is best, and I can justify it economically/environmentally (ie if I’m not dumping it all in the trash with every cage clean/I suppose if I go bioactive/etc) I’ll go with it, but I’d really rather use something that I can feel less crappy about treating more disposably.

Another question about the enclosure itself: Currently I have my cresteds in plastic storage bins, as was recommended to me by some more experienced keepers and fifty bajillion YouTubes/etc.

The geckos can’t really seem to grip/get purchase on the plastic in order to climb the walls, Spider-Man style. I have an adult male that was previously kept in a glass terrarium, and he seems particularly flummoxed by this new anti-grip glass. He used to spend a lot of time in his old tank up on the wall or wedged in a corner, etc.

Is this ok? Should I just make sure that there are a lot more surfaces inside the enclosure? Put up backdrops? Rough up some of the surfaces with sandpaper?

I really don’t want to go back to glass enclosures, having the bins makes everything so much easier to deal with/much more space efficient/etc (I have six geckos)

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Hmm, I didn't know Sphagnum was environmentally unfriendly. That's good to know. Coco coir is also fine, although yeah it kind of gets everywhere.

Crested geckos are arboreal. They instinctively want to climb, so they should have a lot of branches and stuff to climb on no matter what. Mine definitely like the glass a lot too, but if you give them a tangle of branches of finger-width or so thick they'll spend a lot of time in them. A backdrop also works.

Can you actually see them in their bins? I'm always a little weirded out by herp people who just seem to store their "collections" in a way that they can't see the animals and watch their behavior and stuff. For me, they're pets, and I want to watch them geck around whenever.

But yeah totes are not going to harm them and I bet if you roughed up the plastic that'd help them get a grip, although remove all the microplastic you create so they don't ingest it.

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
The bins or RUBs (really useful boxes) are massively “controversial” in the reptile world, and when I say controversial I mean it’s the equivalent of people on reddit doing something glaringly wrong and accusing anyone who points this out of being “political”


They started off in America with breeders and infested the pet world as these idiots with dogshit husbandry used YouTube to justify their own cruelty and greed. They have been good at it too, “cool” tattooed manly men with high production values and charisma aggressively insisting that they love every one of these 4000 adult snakes packed in a warehouse (which never seems to make them sweat?) and they are not afraid to get emotional and cry on camera when someone in the comments section has dared suggest otherwise. Then they make lists of their favourite YouTubers and go “I know this one is controversial” gently caress you dude.

It’s the emperor’s new clothes of the herp world. 10 years ago every single one of these breeder animals would have been kept in a vivarium/terrarium, with more pet owners supplying the market with carefully chosen pairings, then breeders figured out that they could use racks with small tubs in to keep babies and the rates of survival went up. It really didn’t take long for them to start packing these animals in like Pokemon and for these mega breeders to arise. The evil of it was them convincing pet owners that they too can keep a 5ft snake in a 3ft plastic box, it’s cheap, anyone can afford a ball python and look if you only spend $50 on set up then you can spend $500 on this snake I am trying to sell you. Buy 4, 4 rubs take up the space of one vivarium so you can collect them all, from me, buy my snakes.

You go on any ball python group and say vivarium are better for the snake and a hundred teenagers will start screeching about gatekeeping at you between discussions about getting humidity to 80% and why is my snake breathing funny and yawning. They have been trained by YouTube that this is the correct way and it’s not entirely their fault as this is a huge business now, it is absolutely worth a concentrated effort from breeders to get anyone who shows them the actual science shouted down and bullied away.


It is getting better, in the U.K. wooden vivarium are cheap and judgement high, in America and Canada plastic vivariums have started gaining in popularity and I would expect them to become the norm as the price goes down and the major pet stores start stocking and they will. Also RUB ball pythons can be rehabilitated at any age, they just can.

The website is from the 1990s but this is the latest recommended enclosure sizes https://www.thefbh.org/news

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Leperflesh posted:

Can you actually see them in their bins? I'm always a little weirded out by herp people who just seem to store their "collections" in a way that they can't see the animals and watch their behavior and stuff. For me, they're pets, and I want to watch them geck around whenever.

But yeah totes are not going to harm them and I bet if you roughed up the plastic that'd help them get a grip, although remove all the microplastic you create so they don't ingest it.

The bins are clear, except for the lids, so I can see in and the geckos can see out with zero problem. They are on a shelf in my office room, in a place of prominence where they can be observed easily.

learnincurve posted:

The bins or RUBs (really useful boxes) are massively “controversial” in the reptile world, and when I say controversial I mean it’s the equivalent of people on reddit doing something glaringly wrong and accusing anyone who points this out of being “political”


They started off in America with breeders and infested the pet world as these idiots with dogshit husbandry used YouTube to justify their own cruelty and greed. They have been good at it too, “cool” tattooed manly men with high production values and charisma aggressively insisting that they love every one of these 4000 adult snakes packed in a warehouse (which never seems to make them sweat?) and they are not afraid to get emotional and cry on camera when someone in the comments section has dared suggest otherwise. Then they make lists of their favourite YouTubers and go “I know this one is controversial” gently caress you dude.

It’s the emperor’s new clothes of the herp world. 10 years ago every single one of these breeder animals would have been kept in a vivarium/terrarium, with more pet owners supplying the market with carefully chosen pairings, then breeders figured out that they could use racks with small tubs in to keep babies and the rates of survival went up. It really didn’t take long for them to start packing these animals in like Pokemon and for these mega breeders to arise. The evil of it was them convincing pet owners that they too can keep a 5ft snake in a 3ft plastic box, it’s cheap, anyone can afford a ball python and look if you only spend $50 on set up then you can spend $500 on this snake I am trying to sell you. Buy 4, 4 rubs take up the space of one vivarium so you can collect them all, from me, buy my snakes.

You go on any ball python group and say vivarium are better for the snake and a hundred teenagers will start screeching about gatekeeping at you between discussions about getting humidity to 80% and why is my snake breathing funny and yawning. They have been trained by YouTube that this is the correct way and it’s not entirely their fault as this is a huge business now, it is absolutely worth a concentrated effort from breeders to get anyone who shows them the actual science shouted down and bullied away.


It is getting better, in the U.K. wooden vivarium are cheap and judgement high, in America and Canada plastic vivariums have started gaining in popularity and I would expect them to become the norm as the price goes down and the major pet stores start stocking and they will. Also RUB ball pythons can be rehabilitated at any age, they just can.

The website is from the 1990s but this is the latest recommended enclosure sizes https://www.thefbh.org/news

:chloe:

you know glass enclosures can create a ton of behavioral, stress, and physical health problems for captive reptiles, right?

Especially (as an example) for pretty much all chelonians, switching to a table or bin/stock tank-type of enclosure with visible barriers is vastly preferable to keeping them in an aquarium. Also good luck finding/fabricating a glass tank big enough to compete with a 300gal stock tub if you keep aquatics like I do.

Like, I’m not here to argue in favor of herping YouTubes (god knows there are a few very high profile channels that are clearly mistreating/using their animals, and that’s without going into the whole cesspool that is “rescue” channel scams) or to defend practices common to commercial breeding or to the keeping of research animals, etc. that prioritize things like space efficiency or cost over environmental enrichment and so forth. I wouldn’t mosey into a dog thread claiming that my local puppy mill is “doing things right” because “look at all the puppies they produce”.

I’m not here to defend snake racks or the people that use them.

But you’re coming in pretty hot, and you don’t even know how big my enclosures are.

For the record—the juveniles are each in their own 14x12x17 inch enclosure and the big male is in a tub literally double that size (14x17x24–basically slightly larger than a 20gal tall), both sizes of which are totally within the realm of what a herp/exotics vet would advise for cresteds at those respective developmental stages. Nobody is being kept in a shoebox or chest of drawers.

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
Vivariums are not made of glass, they are three sides wood or plastic. The fish tank style enclosures you find in America are situational and do require modifications, like blanking out three sides.

We do have problems with wooden vivariums and humidity and there are all sorts of fixes to prevent warping, happily hybrid and plastic vivariums are available “cheap” and when I say cheap I mean double the cost of wood but when you factor in that you may need to replace a warped vivarium at some point it makes it worth it.


It’s not just about size, it’s also about heat and light. There is no daylight cycle and you cannot safely light or set up overhead basking in a plastic RUB. It’s a fire risk. I am aware there are internet guides telling you how to do this, show them to a qualified electrician and a fireman and watch them scream.


The link I put up is peer reviewed and comes from decades of research and science, it says rubs and racks are suitable for hatchlings, and adults for no more than 3 months.

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

learnincurve posted:

Vivariums are not made of glass, they are three sides wood or plastic. The fish tank style enclosures you find in America are situational and do require modifications, like blanking out three sides.

We do have problems with wooden vivariums and humidity and there are all sorts of fixes to prevent warping, happily hybrid and plastic vivariums are available “cheap” and when I say cheap I mean double the cost of wood but when you factor in that you may need to replace a warped vivarium at some point it makes it worth it.


It’s not just about size, it’s also about heat and light. There is no daylight cycle and you cannot safely light or set up overhead basking in a plastic RUB. It’s a fire risk. I am aware there are internet guides telling you how to do this, show them to a qualified electrician and a fireman and watch them scream.


The link I put up is peer reviewed and comes from decades of research and science, it says rubs and racks are suitable for hatchlings, and adults for no more than 3 months.

tell me more about how I need to supplement light for my nocturnal nonbasking geckos that do not require UV and are in clear enclosures on a shelving unit that literally has T8 grow lights on day/night timer cycle mounted above every shelf in a heavily climate-controlled space that dips into the low 70s at night

but, yes, I’m well aware that the babies will eventually outgrow their current setups, and I was asking above for ideas/options for a more permanent and visually appealing home for the adult male, so I’ll be sure to keep these guidelines in mind as I plan my build and shop around for options

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Yeah new caledonian crested geckos are from a temperate forest and are crepuscular, they do not bask and should be kept at normal human "room temperature" ranges of maybe 65 or so at the low end to 80 at the absolute top end. They should have cyclic humidity, not steady high humidity, and airflow is important. My biggest concern with a plastic tub would be adequate airflow, but that can certainly be managed with a reasonable amount of holes and screens and so on if you're handy with a box cutter.

I don't like tubs because I find them ugly, mostly, I don't have an issue with a big clear tub being used for a crestie as long as the appropriate environmental conditions are met. I do agree that these arboreal animals can be stressed if they feel too exposed - I fill my vivs with plenty of hides, I have (plastic/fake so they don't constantly have to be pruned) plants, cork, etc. and I much prefer front access vs. top access for feeding, because I find it easier to prevent escapes.

e. I think learnincurve is coming from a place of concern about herp keeping in general with an overabundance of "collectors" cramming lots of animals into small tubs and insisting that is OK and I agree with them that it's really not OK generally. It's just, yes, at least some kinds of plastic as a material for an enclosure are OK, all else being equal.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Dec 6, 2022

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
People posting about tubs when I'd just rescued a "slow grown" (stunted/thin) boa constrictor isn't going to get anything but my death to the gaslighting snake mills on youtube rant I’m afraid. :( He's come from an idiot.


I'm posting about him now because he ate his rat and kept it down like a good boy. He's a Kevin Hasley black eyed Anery motley, a lot of Nicaraguan in him which is where the size and motley came from (avoid Columbian motley as the Columbian super motley is a fatal gene) and some Columbian. He's 4 and 3.5 feet long, and it's very unlikely he'll make it to 5ft. You won't see many like him, only one or two clutches ever existed because this morph is one of the main components of the black devil boa constrictor.

This is not my snek, this is a nearly identical litter mate of my snek, Julius Squeezer (yeh) has a darker head.

Cowslips Warren
Oct 29, 2005

What use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?

Grimey Drawer
Stunted as like they were kept in a tiny cage? I've often worried my ball python Alien was stunted being kept in a 40 breeder tank. Picky snake always refused to eat rats and will only take live mice, but even when he was in an 80 gallon he is, well, a ball python: cruising around but never like a king or milk or corn snake.

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
Enclosure size has no effect, they just end up wearing it if they are fed the right amount,

Slow growing is a curse, with boas we’ve had the trend of over feeding to make enormous females and now we got slow growing/underfeeding to prevent them growing at a normal rate because if you have 400 snakes then the rat bill gets expensive.

Best advice I got given from a old school breeder of both ball pythons and boas is just feed adults enough to make a very small lump and feed every two weeks, if the snake starts to look a bit chubby then go every three weeks for a bit. He said what you don’t want is a adult snake waddling around after a feed like they just ate too much at Christmas because that means they won’t get hungry enough to come out to hunt and get exercise.

pOtShOtWilly
Apr 29, 2007
Hailing from Surbiton Way...
We have a male Ball Python, around a year old - he's 850g. When we got him, we were given a starter 2ft wooden (MDF) viv with glass door. We set this up (on the breeders recommendation) with a heat mat and thermostat (Habistat Mat Stat). There is a perspex sheet over the mat, over which we line with absorbant paper. I have the thermostat probe attached to the top of the perspex and set at about 32 degrees Celsius. All good, seemed happy enough and over the past few weeks he's really spent most of his time in his hide on his mat. He eats very well; a small rat every 10 / 14 days and no trouble at all.

Two days ago he peed in his hide enough for the urine seemingly to short circuit his heat mat, burn out the plastic and scorch the underside of the viv. The smell was terrible, but snakey was seemingly fine and seemed his usual self when I handled him and checked him over.

I tidied everything up, replaced with a spare mat, taped it down, tried to make sure in the event of fluid ingress the fluid wouldn't puddle and popped him back. That night, Sir Piss managed to repeat the feat - literally a burned out a mat again. I've no reason to think the stat has an issue.

I toddled off to a local reptile guy and asked for help; messaging the breeder (I'm friendly with him) and asked for help. Here's the issue: Reptile Guy recommended a top mounted Radiant Heat Panel and Thermostat. He said that for a wooden vivarium, a heat mat was not ideal (giving my issue as an example), but this was a better shout (or a ceramic heat bulb in a cage - I didn't go for that). This sounded fine by me, as the internet seemed to suggest with a bit of rudimentary searching that RHPs are absolutely fine. Got home, set it up, lovely. I'll let it all acclimatise (I have a spare, identical 2ft viv)

The breeder's messaged me, however, and says I've made a mistake. Ball Pythons need belly heat and the RHPs are no good at all. Of course, now I've searched the internet even more and found great conflict on the matter I'm pretty stressed out. There is no way I'm putting another mat in with the potential of a fire risk if Whizzo does his business on it again. What's everyone else's opinions?

I'm also concerned about how I've got the RHP fitted (it's a Reptirad 40). I've pointed the stat probe (Digital Stat Microclimate Evo Lite) just over his enclosure and set it to 32 degrees and the viv is warming up, but the panel is very hot to touch. The snake is quite exploratory at night and I'd not want him to burn his snoot.

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

pOtShOtWilly posted:

We have a male Ball Python, around a year old - he's 850g. When we got him, we were given a starter 2ft wooden (MDF) viv with glass door. We set this up (on the breeders recommendation) with a heat mat and thermostat (Habistat Mat Stat). There is a perspex sheet over the mat, over which we line with absorbant paper. I have the thermostat probe attached to the top of the perspex and set at about 32 degrees Celsius. All good, seemed happy enough and over the past few weeks he's really spent most of his time in his hide on his mat. He eats very well; a small rat every 10 / 14 days and no trouble at all.

Two days ago he peed in his hide enough for the urine seemingly to short circuit his heat mat, burn out the plastic and scorch the underside of the viv. The smell was terrible, but snakey was seemingly fine and seemed his usual self when I handled him and checked him over.

I tidied everything up, replaced with a spare mat, taped it down, tried to make sure in the event of fluid ingress the fluid wouldn't puddle and popped him back. That night, Sir Piss managed to repeat the feat - literally a burned out a mat again. I've no reason to think the stat has an issue.

I toddled off to a local reptile guy and asked for help; messaging the breeder (I'm friendly with him) and asked for help. Here's the issue: Reptile Guy recommended a top mounted Radiant Heat Panel and Thermostat. He said that for a wooden vivarium, a heat mat was not ideal (giving my issue as an example), but this was a better shout (or a ceramic heat bulb in a cage - I didn't go for that). This sounded fine by me, as the internet seemed to suggest with a bit of rudimentary searching that RHPs are absolutely fine. Got home, set it up, lovely. I'll let it all acclimatise (I have a spare, identical 2ft viv)

The breeder's messaged me, however, and says I've made a mistake. Ball Pythons need belly heat and the RHPs are no good at all. Of course, now I've searched the internet even more and found great conflict on the matter I'm pretty stressed out. There is no way I'm putting another mat in with the potential of a fire risk if Whizzo does his business on it again. What's everyone else's opinions?

I'm also concerned about how I've got the RHP fitted (it's a Reptirad 40). I've pointed the stat probe (Digital Stat Microclimate Evo Lite) just over his enclosure and set it to 32 degrees and the viv is warming up, but the panel is very hot to touch. The snake is quite exploratory at night and I'd not want him to burn his snoot.

“Belly heat” is another way of saying that pythons don’t bask. They don’t have an instinct to seek out a hot sunny spot on an exposed rock or branch to warm up in, so creating a basking hot spot for the snake in the enclosure in the way that you might do so for a tegu or skink or turtle doesn’t make sense.

Really a better way of framing it is as “ambient heat” rather than heat explicitly coming up from the ground.

This is also important to keep in mind because terrestrial snakes and many other herps will instinctively burrow downward if they feel too warm in an effort to flee the sun. There are many cases in the hobby of an over-warm pet digging down and becoming disoriented, burning themselves, paradoxically smushing themselves against the source of their discomfort and slowly dying, etc.

With “ambient temp” in mind, my recommendation is always to put the radiant heat mat against a vertical wall, such that it creates a gradient from one cool side of the enclosure to a hot side, ideally with dry and humid hides available in both climes.

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
Think about where they are in the wild. If they hide out all day then they are finding a nice hole, and the heat is all around them and not on the ground, at night they get the ambient heat and the stored radiant heat on the ground and trees which they move over but don't spend time on. BPs don't stay in one hole all the time, every time they go bathroom the one brain cell wakes up and goes "hey this place smells of snake, a mouse won't come in here" and they go find a new hole, hopefully with a mouse already in it.


I have one BP with a overhead heat panel and one with ceramic heat emitter (experiment, I much prefer CHE in the UK), and they are fine, they eat and digest and come out at night hunting as it gets towards feed day like they should - I wouldn't put the panel on the end though, even the metal guards can get hot and it's a burn risk. One drawback to panels is that they are low watt wide coverage area so a standard 80w is only good for max 18" height. I got mine on a dimmer thermostat which shows the % of power going to the panel, and it's at full whack 90% of the time.



It turns out that that picture may be of my snake after all, he's also got stuck eye caps ffffffff.

pOtShOtWilly
Apr 29, 2007
Hailing from Surbiton Way...
Thanks (both) for replying. I'm an utter beginner and the heat mat fizzle has really freaked me out, so I hope you forgive my barrage of questions. It's really thrown me that breeder and shop-guy (who breeder recommended) don't align on this.

The new panel is fixed overhead on the enclosure (ceiling) oriented down about 30cm from the top of the hide (which is simple plastic job). I've put the sensor just over the hide. The panel is only 40w; so on setting it to 32c it's drawing 100% - not quite there yet (29c) but the heat graph shows a steady increase as its been warming up. The other side of the viv seems to be about 3-4 degrees cooler.. The panel kicks out an unholy heat (to touch) and the top of the enclosure is very warm. Should the hide really be on the other side; though? The cool side? If I put another one in there would be very little other room in there.

He's around 95cm, I think, but he's easier to weight than measure. I expected I'd needed a bigger vivarium soon, so I'm expecting that too. I just want to do right by the snake, really. :smith:

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
Barrage of information: Two hides either end with some damp moss in one of them, you’ll free up a bit of space by using a round domed hide the other end. Thermostat probe goes in the corner half way up. I’m not sure where you are, if it’s the UK https://www.repti-life.co.uk is the go to for vivs, I’ve had normal, repti-lux and custom from them - the latter is same price scale as the lux and they just charge a bit extra for the wood. The habistat radiator guard fits on all the panels including reptirad (which I have).

The 2ft vivarium won’t be a waste if you upgrade, it will be *perfect* for a Kenyan sand boa.

pOtShOtWilly
Apr 29, 2007
Hailing from Surbiton Way...
Yeah, I am in the UK. This is the panel I have: https://www.reticsandreptiles.co.uk/product-page/reptirad-40w-advanced-reptile-radiator

When you say "guard" what kind are you using and you recommend a link? The box suggests it doesn't need a guard but I can see why you might want one (ouch).

learnincurve
May 15, 2014

Smoosh
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B083M463Z2 is the guard, out of stock on Amazon but it looks like online pet shops have it. It does fit in a 15cm wide vivarium.

This is the exact guard in large we all use for CHE https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B008182O4I and the CHE we use is the 150w on a habistat dimmer, other brands can be huge and problematic with the guards
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B006JWUG5W the ceramic fitting is https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00GVDTUNI

Bricks and mortar shops have all of this stuff in but I wouldn’t give that guy any more money.

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pOtShOtWilly
Apr 29, 2007
Hailing from Surbiton Way...

learnincurve posted:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B083M463Z2 is the guard, out of stock on Amazon but it looks like online pet shops have it. It does fit in a 15cm wide vivarium.

[...]

Bricks and mortar shops have all of this stuff in but I wouldn’t give that guy any more money.

Thanks, I've ordered the guard online in the faith that the panel I've bought is the right thing. It's a bit bigger than the rad, but the dimensions sound ok. Do you reckon the shop guy has given me a bad steer with this kit?

I've put my snake in; with no heating in his old viv I was getting worried about him, but tried to keep him under observation over night. Before this, he spent most of his time balled up on his heat mat - only coming out briefly at night or when it was time to eat. He's currently kind of stretched out (not balled) in the middle of the vivarium. I know he'll need to adjust but I hate feeling like I've rocked his world in a bad way.

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