Posted by:
Matt Campbell
at Thu Sep 2 21:26:31 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Matt Campbell ]
Hello,
I keep a pair of Taiwans and have over the last three years I have consistently kept them at temps ranging from mid 70s to high 80s to low 90s. I think above all else you need to look at the temperature range of the geographic area where your snakes come from. A lot of people state that all the Taiwans, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. need to be kept cooler than North American rat snakes. Why?
The best I can figure is this assumption comes from one single source - a single general publication about ratsnakes, I believe maybe written by Jerry Walls, and possibly published by Barrons. Unfortunately that book has not been updated in years and was likely written based on information that was scant at best when the Southeast Asian rats started showing up in the pet trade [which was late 1990s if I'm correct].
What probably happened is that the Cave Rats [Elaphe taeniura ridleyi], probably require cooler temperatures because of their unique habitat choice - extrapolate and you get someone, somewhere taking this information and saying all Elaphe taeniura spp. need to be kept cooler than North American Ratsnakes.
Another case of this is many people seem to think all Macklot's Pythons don't grow any larger than about 7 feet in length. Again, someone way back when probably looked at all the Macklot's localities and deduced that the average length must be around 7 feet. So, you've got lots of people breeding them and keeping them and not realizing that the most common locality is the Timor Island Macklot's in which females routinely attain lengths of up to 10 feet, with males not much smaller. Food for thought.
In conclusion, and to finally answer your question I would keep your Vietnamese Blues on the warmer side - probably about mid to high 80s with a hotter basking spot - approaching 90 degrees. You can always go to www.weather.com and look up the weather for Ho Chi Minh City or some other city in the same geographic region and base your temps on that. I did the same thing for Taipei, Taiwan and found that it had much the same weather as what we get in Chicago, Illinois USA.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois
Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois
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RE: Is it Me or the Blues that are hated? - Matt Campbell, Thu Sep 2 21:26:31 2004