I agree with you on that totally, when I said 86 degrees, I really only said that so the snake itself could not get any hotter than that. As both of us know, if a cage is long enough, you could even have it 200 degrees if you really wanted, as long as the snake could get further away from it, and into it's preferred gradient somewhere in between those extremes. But just as the poster a few threads down found out, if they cannot get away from the hot part as well, they are dead(as he also found out).



Also, I kept the office setting in mind, now if this is at a work office that is going to be closed the entire night with nobody there, I would tend to try to go a tad cooler if the snake wouldn't have to pay a price, and could still stay within a reasonable tollerance.



You and I have been around this all our lives, but we also see and here all too often horrible things that happen involving heating snakes and setups when a newer owner does this sort of thing for the first time and dosn't account for certain things, and something doesn't quite go as planned. We both know it can be very dangerous, and at the very least easily lead to the death of the snake, if not much worse than that, so that is really the only reason I wasn't quite as liberal with the warmer side temps suggestion in this situation.



It does sound like there is probably enough length to this cage that he could go a few degrees more on the far side, but not too much more.



I was talking just a bit ago to someone on the phone about this, and as long as the person knows that the snake usually isn't choosing either extreme temp most of the time, but rather somewhere in between just like you mentioned, then everything is all good.



Anyway, yeah, I totally dig what you said about a few more degrees working well too.



Oh!!, TO THE ORIGINAL POSTER!!!!!!.........



Whatever you do, make absolutely sure this setup is NOT by a window where the sun can directly shine in on it AT ALL, not even for a little bit, this can kill the snake in no time!. This is a fairly common mistake that many have made in the past, and as the sun changes position during the course of the day, it starts to shine in on the snake. This has "fried" many a snake in the past.



I'm certainly not suggesting you are an idiot or anything, but I just thought I would mention it anyway, as it just came to mind. This stuff can easily happen sometimes, believe it or not..LOL!







~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

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