Posted by:
Conserving_herps
at Sun Sep 20 21:46:23 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Conserving_herps ]
If you can do away with the heating pads attached underneath the floor, you'd do yourself and the snake a favor of eliminating the risk of the snake getting burned on its belly. But if you must have the heating pad (maybe because the area you are keeping the snake is too cold, like a basement), then I would place newspapers on the glass floor (inside your terrarium) and secure all sides of the newspaper with electrical tape so that there is zero chance the snake WILL NOT hide underneath the newspapers. The thickness of the newspapers depends on how strong heat eminates from your heating pad underneath the outside part of the glass floor. My suggestion is after you placed the newspaper and the heating pad has been running for awhile now, place your palm on top of the newspapers for about 2 minutes. If you can withstand that heat for that long, there's probably little chance for the snake to get burned. Then cover the entire flooring with aspen bedding. Also, if you use this methodology, you will have to constantly change the newspaper, especially when it gets to be really crispy overtime because of the heat. Again, you only do all this if you really have to use the heating pads underneath...I'm not an advocate of heating pads because of the risk for the snake and also not sure how much heat your heating pad emits that could be a fire hazard.
Having said that, instead, use heating bulb from the top to heat up one side of the terrarium. The warm side should be around temps of 78-82F and should not be more than 83F. Constant prolonged exposure of more than 83F can cause sterility on snakes. The cool side should be 65 to 72F. The most important thing is for your snake to be able to go back and forth between the warm and cool areas without any difficulties at all.
Hope that helps...
Good luck...
Ray
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RAY  - "Laziness is nothing more than a habit of resting before getting tired!"
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RE: PLEASE help me with my temp gradient!!! - Conserving_herps, Sun Sep 20 21:46:23 2009