Hi Kc

Ambients are too high IMO.

The hotspot ranges from 110F to 135F and it depends on the ambients and the age of the bulb, they kind of cool off as they get old and I don't always notice, but it doesn't matter with these snakes as there is plenty of heat. That is for the Mex mex. In the winter I may have had a 38 watt regular incandescent for a month or two during the coldest weather, I cannot remember.

The ambient is average at 65F but that fluctuates. It might get down to 58 or 55 in the dead of winter. I live in Eastern WA at ~3000 feet. My ambient temps are never hotter than 80-82 F and only for a few hours a day on the hottest days of the year.

They are kept this way all year. I have been running these experiments since this debate started about three years ago. I bought all these snakes as hatchlings and have been raising them up. I got them in 2010 the mex mex first bred this year, and the getula gave me eggs last year. However the first winter I did not provide heat, and lost a female mex mex and a couple getula. I was keeping them in a cold room during the winter and it got too cold for too long and It was a huge mistake.

Since then I have kept them the same. The getula in the rack and the mex mex in the deep substrate options type cage.

The getula are in a rack system, and the heat cable is set to 90F right now, but in the winter I had it lower at around 80F. I should also mention that last year I struggled to get nice full clutches in the rack system and I had some cases where the males ate eggs. The cal kings had a lower hatch rate, and overall nesting was an issue.

This year I made some adjustments and nesting was much better in the tubs, but I would say that consistently with the deep nesting so far the results are superior in terms of growth, and I would say there is a learning curve involved there too. I will get better at nesting them in this way too as I make the needed adjustment and correct the mistakes that I make.
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"We are challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations" George W.

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