Oh my god, I typed this huge response last night and my login must have timed out. Damn.

You're exactly right, for snakes it is function over form and a lot of it has to do with where you live and how much control you have of your "snake room".

(I only have a couple years' experience with hognose so take what I say with a grain of salt. There are people here with a lot more experience!)

If you're in TX I would imagine you could easily get away with tubs for your hognose. If you want to try back heat, You could secure a board behind the shelving system and run some heat tape against it vertically. It would have to be flush, though! Get a nice thermostat, like a Herpstat or Hydrofarm. No need to turn the heat off; it will do so on its own when the set temperature is exceeded. Set it and forget it!

Also, hogs love to make tunnels! Use the pipe if you want, and if you use substrate maybe put a few throughout the substrate and against the side of the enclosure so you get an underground "window"?

I'm in New England and humidity's a pain in the butt this time of year, so I actually put all my smaller colubrids into XL Critter Keeper things...the ones with ventilation going 30% down all the sides...a lot less worrisome than the tubs. I'm still thinking about buying a custom rack though. Something with DEEP tubs for the hognose.

Good luck and have fun
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You ever talk to me like that again...and I'll turn your balls into earrings. Understand?

Go for it.

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