Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Forgive me, my experience with sub-ocs is still formative. I'm reading care sheets for GBKs that recommend 88 degrees on the warm side. At the same time, I'm advised that for TPRs, 78 should be the warm side. Don't they inhabit the exact same environs?? What goes here?

Disclaimer:
If your reading this, don’t consider it anything more than it is; one person’s experience with temps and TPRs.

All conventional care that I had read on TPRs (5 plus years ago) said a range from 82F to a hot spot of 90F. I followed this and got allot of regurgitation.
I dropped it to 72 to 85 after visiting a successful breeder and it was much better. I did notice, however, that the animals never stayed on the hot side with heat tape. I asked him and he said that his stayed on the cool side all the time as well.
I adjusted mine to the constant 78F and it works with maybe a delta of 3 degrees (night time drop).
Additionally, I've found wild subocs on some pretty cool nights where they had stored thermal energy from sun of rock mass.

After visiting “Dustyroad”'s great web site, I am going to try a basking light and see how that goes.

I would welcome comments by others.

On Gray-bands I do nothing different and they live and breed fine! I do think they tolerate higher temps and humidity better. They sure thrived in my hot, humid garage when we lived in Florida and Texas.

I've measured temps on and under rocks in West Texas, and, more often than not, just 6 " down on a 90 F day, the temps will be in the low to mid 70s F.
Humidity in the tight crevices where the gray-bands frequent seems much higher as well.
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Regards, Bill McGighan

Hey guys, just noticed this post. Sorry for the late reply.

I'll say what Bill regarding this being just my experience. I live in Central Florida where the springs, summers and even most of fall are hot and humid. Generally, when I get new hatchlings I keep them inside in a melamine rack unit that has a heat tape. The warm end is around 84 degrees and the cool end is much cooler as I keep my house pretty cool (71 at night, 77 max during day, rare though). This is how I keep all my baby snakes, TPR's and graybands, as well as getula kings, corns, etc. Seems to work fine.

Once they are big enough to be moved to larger cages, they move to my garage. Again, I live in Florida. the cages are well-ventilated, the garage has a window that mostly stays open and I have a lot of oak trees in my yard that provide some shade. But it still gets hot and humid. The hottest I've seen it is probably 93. And then only for a short time. but it does regularly stay in the high 80's to about 90 quite a bit. And of course, it's humid. All my snakes seem fine in this setup as far as feeding is concerned. None of my subocs has EVER regurgitated. I keep water in with them at all times but in small bowls. My alterna do great, one pair double clutch each year without any "coaxing" on my part. Again, feeding is not a problem.

Now as for breeding the subocs, I had several years of infertile eggs from large adults until Dusty mentioned that a lot of suboc breeders don't keep their males on heat tapes after brumation. that got me thinking about how hot it gets in the garage, especially since they are late breeders. By the time they get around to breeding they had been subjected to a few months of high temps. This year I brought my big male blonde inside. I kept him in the air conditioning with no supplemental heat. Again, house down to 71/70 at night, average of 76 during day. He ate, no problem. He also bred and for the first time ever fathered two clutches (one of 16 eggs, no slugs, 100% hatch rate). The second breeding was sort of an afterthought and occurred after I moved him back to the garage. That female laid 7 eggs, only one of which hatched.

So, in conclusion, I have had no problems KEEPING TPR's in hot, humid conditions. But have had problems getting fertile eggs. They'll bred, but lay slugs. I plan on doing the same thing this year with them.

Whenever I read articles about TPR's that suggest keeping them at low humidity and/no water and low temps I always wonder why mine have done great for me under opposite conditions.

Sorry about the long post Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Thanks for your response, Mike.
Nothing succeeds like success!
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Regards, Bill McGighan

>>Whenever I read articles about TPR's that suggest keeping them at low humidity and/no water and low temps I always wonder why mine have done great for me under opposite conditions.

What I believe to be the problem with keeping and breeding subocs in the SE U.S. where it gets hot and humid isn't the Relative Humidity; it's the problem that Mike described of keeping the males in hot conditions. Because of the high RH, it even gets hot in the shade. That isn't as much of a problem in other parts of the country. Though it may be really hot outside it stays relatively cool and dry in the garage.

Trans-Pecos spend most of the time in cooler conditions throughout the year under ground during the day and sometimes above ground at night.

The other problem is poor ventilation. I know of several guys who live in Florida who do well w/ their Bogeys because they don't keep them the same way they keep their Hondurans, Fl. kings, corns and balls (e.g., in stagnant racks in a humid garage). Instead, they keep their Trans-Pecos in aqauria with screen tops or they drill many, many holes in their racks and keep fans going and blowing over their cages. The humid garage is actually okay as long as the cage is ventilated above-average protocol for colubrids. Still, I'd recommend keeping them in A/C when possible.

Once these two concepts are understood and their needs are met, you can do just as well w/ Bogeys in the Florida Keys as you can in West Texas.

As far as temps, subocs do well at room temperature without much supplemental heat. The only animals in my collection that really seem to use their heat source are youngsters. With all that rapid growing, they probably need the additional warmth. I would advise the same for gravid females, though they don't seem to use their heat source that often either.

DR
Suboc.com

Thanks again Dusty.
Good stuff....
Now if we all agree ventilation in a key factor (with cooler gonad requirements for breeding (works for humans too LOL)), this begs the question:
Why do they need ventilation?
· What is it they need? Oxygen?
· No mold and mildew build up?
· Like to have their hair blow-dried?????

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Regards, Bill McGighan

Sorry to sidetrack your post, D.
For what it’s worth department; Just something that worked well for me.
Last year, to insure probability of water spills was reduced, I installed "parrot" water bowls for TPRs.
This got the water off the ground, is bolted to the cage wall, cannot be tipped, is quickly removable to clean with a locking mechanism, and is readily available at pet stores.
.

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Regards, Bill McGighan

Thanks guys for all the good feedback! Still scratching my head over why GBK's are less demanding of temps than TPR's when, essentially, they're living under the same rocks.
We've got our 6 sub-ocs all in screen tops & in the bedroom where a ceiling fan ensures good circulation at least at night. Daytime temps rarely exceed 78 even in summer. So, reckon they're in the suggested parameters.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Dan.