Posted by:
toshamc
at Fri Mar 31 11:14:03 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by toshamc ]
I will also agree to disagree – LOL – cause I am not really up for an argument this morning.
Back in the early to mid 90s there was a study done that compared how environmental extremes impacted cold blooded vs. warm-blooded animals. Yes BPs were included in that study as well as some of the big-bodied snakes and several lizard and tortoise species.
Long story short the study showed that extremes in heat and humidity (as well as other environment factors) will tax a reptiles cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive systems. Yeah – your snakes might not be bleeding at the eyes or flopping over dead – but the low humidity is taxing their systems more than it needs to. I guess you can compare it with smoking or obesity in humans – you can get by fine for a long time – but is it really the healthiest choice for your body?
To be honest up until my vet showed me the study I had never even measured or thought twice about my humidity. But I live in a place were relative humidity hovers around 50-60% anyway so it wasn’t really an issue for my snakes.
Also I want to point out that 60% or even 80% humidity is by no means a wet cage or dangerous environment. Also – appropriate relative humidity has very little or nothing to do with the problems that you describe – those problems generally occur due to several other poor husbandry issues – to blame it solely on humidity is misleading.
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Tosha 
"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"
6.42.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.1 Lizard of unknown origin
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RE: Tosh...we'll have to agree to disagr - toshamc, Fri Mar 31 11:14:03 2006