Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all...I am a forum poster from eons ago with a question here.
At what temp is everyone keeping their burms?
I ask because I use to use textbook temps...low 90's hot side...low 80's cool side.
I have moved to a new house where instead of a herp room I have everyone in the unfinished basement where I have troubles keeping temps much beyond mid to low 80's.
My burms are much more active at these temps, they are eating like never before, they are much more at ease it seems.
Not just my burms, but my redtails, balls, and dumerils as well.
The most interesting part of this is the eating thing.
At these temps, which have been pretty constant since spring, they are all eating like pigs. It seems I cannot feed them enough! Yet none seem to be overweight. Just good solid body weights, and girths.
I am in the process of changing all my enclosures over to radiant heat panels, with Ranco thermostats, and I am going to try keeping these temps.
Has anyone else had this experience with the lower temps? Perhaps it could be the optimum humidity levels in the basement, rather than temps? Or a combo of temps and humidity?
I'm interested in reading your input.

I am new to burms, so I follow textbook temps. He is low 90's on the hot, 80's on the cool. I'm having on hard time keeping the humidity up due to the location of the enclosure in my house and the fact that the A/c is running constantly here in FL even though it's only set on 78.

I moved my boa outside at the beginning of the summer. He stays in large wooden enclosure that is well-ventilated and my garage is well-ventilated. His temps are high 80's and has a much higher humidity. He seems to be prefer it out there and is much more active. Well, he's on the shy side anyway, but I see him in the morning taking a stretch.

I would gamble to say that you have a combination of heat and humidity working on your favor. I have a little female corn snake that will avoid any sort of additional heat and prefers to be kept at room temperature. As long as I provide her with enough humidity, she seems to function well. If I provide any heat, she coils in the coolest section of the cage or rubs her nose on the screen lid constantly. I think textbook standards are a great guide, but sometimes individual considerations must be taken into account as well. I would keep an eye on cool (relatively), damp conditions just to make sure that other health conditions do not develop.

Your situation is interesting, I've not experienced any relation to lower temps & activity, feeding. I'm more inclined to think that even though temps have dropped down a bit, being in a basement has increased humidity and that might be the reason for the changes. The temps are still within operating range so increased humidity might be the booster.

The only other thing I can think of that might cause it would be if you're now using the same room for raising rodents & snakes where you didn't at your other house. But I'm sure you would have picked up on that if that were the case. I just said something - just in case.

Take care!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

Nope...not the rodents...I buy my rabbits online, and keep 'em in the freezer.
It almost seems as though that in the past my temps were too high, and not to their liking, now the lower temps, coupled with the humidity levels have triggered something.
The earlier poster may have hit the nail on the head.
My temp, humidity combo must be just right.
Now...if I could only find an more energy efficient way of heating all my cages.

Isn't it nice to stumble upon things every now & then? And you really capitalized on it, too. You stumbled upon the right conditions for several setups, not just one. Lucky rascal!

I didn't think rodents were a factor but I felt like I should mention it just in case. What made me really think about it is that when I went to FL for the Daytona show my wife took it upon herself to move my corns & a ball down to my rat room that I had been converting over to a reptile room.

Well, it wasn't ready and the rats were still in there. I was gone for a little over a week and the rat cages weren't taken care of so when I get home they're all stuck in a 24/7 feeding frenzy. My mellow corn was a lean, mean, striking machine. LOL!

Have you measured the humidity level of the room & cages?

Take care!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

I couldn't begin to guess the humidity in the room, but the humidity in my burm, and various boa cages is around 60%.
In the past few days, the ambient temps in the basement have dropped a couple degrees, with a corresponding drop in cage temps, and I noticed my milks have now become more active.
Weird, but I am going to try and stay with these lower temps as long as I feel my animals are healthy with them, and I'll keep you updated.
With winter coming soon here in Connecticut, the game changes, but I hope to have all my cages converted to RHPs, and I've switched over to Ranco thermostats.

I hope things keep going the way they are for ya.

I've always used CHEs and I love 'em. Man do they last a long time. But I've been thinking about trying a RHP in one of the final cages I'll be building within the next month or so.

Catch ya later!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

It could also be that the room they are in does not have as much traffic coming through. I know a couple of my snakes did the same. Plus 78 on the cool end is not bad, I have talked well known breeders that keep the cool side at 75 but 1/3 hot end up in the 90s up to 100.

I use radient heat panels as well. Although, in my vision cage 6ft one, my retic pulled it down. He got just enough between the cage and the panel and kept working on it and by god, he cracked it, almost in half. I also used the method of hanging it by drilling a hole in each corner, not the things they give you. I was advised to. But last winter I had problems keeping the air temp up, then someone advised me to use a heat gun. the temps in the air said 85 but the groud was above 90, so it was OK but the heat panels, and I used helix thermostats help out greatly in the Chicago Winters in the basement. I even though this year of putting pig blankets on top of the cages.

Hope this helps.
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0.2 Rotts
1.0 Super Tiger
1.0 Amel Retic
0.1 Ball Python
0.1 Red Tail
0.1 Blood Python
1.0 Green Ananconda
1.0 Emerald Tree Boa

Good point about traffic being a possibility. That's one that we all should've thought about but it never dawned on me.

I appreciate your input on RHPs. I'm going to try to take some time to see if I can find something on whether they use less electricity or not. For the considerable price difference between the size RHP I'd need for all my burms' cages and CHEs, I'll have to find something that will justify it. I say it that way because CHE's have always worked well for me & my setups. But things may change once I get everything moved to my enclosed garage that's gonna be my new reptile romper room.

I can see your retic hammerin' away at the RHP. I raised my two adult burms together in the same 75-gal. tank with weighted down top. I've watched them many times work together as a team, hammerin' the same corner, trying to push it up. I've seen the female working one corner & the male on the opposite side of the tank. The female lifted the top enough so it made a noise when it came back down. The male promptly turned around & went to help her. I was like, "Dang!" Needless to say, they're not in that setup any more.

Alright, sorry for getting off topic.

Have a good one!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

The traffic is about the same as the old house. Perhaps being in the basement, the difference may be there is less sunlight here, than my old herp room that had deck sliders that allowed sunlight to come in?
Though the blinds were usually drawn...to keep temps from skyrocketing.
I had to plead ignorance about CHE's. I know nothing about them, though I wish I knew how to set them up. My setups are either heat lamps, RHPs, or UTH's.
Heat lamps are NOT a herpers friend.
I need to find a more economical way to heat, as our power company raised our rates 60% in the past year. I'm spending tons of money on electric bills, that could otherwise be used to buy more animals.
Before our New England winter settles in, I plan on doing some work in the basement to reduce heat loss.
If I can raise my ambient temps even a little, that will save some money. I cool all my snakes during the winter, but that still costs a bunch to keep the temps low.
I'm figuring that the RHPs will cycle less frequently, reducing power consumption, while still maintaining optimum temps.

One last item...my RHPs are bolted right through the cages with stainless steel hardware, and nylon lockbolts.
They're not going anywhere. There is no space between them and the celing of the cage for a snake to get into and rip down.
Been using the oldest one for two years, and it has yet to move.
The ones I use are already drilled through for mounting this way.
I just use the hole drilled into the RHP, and drill the 4 holes through the cage to match.
I also bolt my cheapo florescent light fixtures the same way.

> > > "I need to find a more economical way to heat,..."

You and me, both! With heating & basking components totaling somewhere between 800 - 1,000 watts, my power bill runs $150 - $200 higher per month. But after all's said 'n done, they're worth it, although I'd like to reduce that cost.

Later!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

I too experienced more activity with lower temps. I kept it around 85 and he avoided the heated side. I lowered temps to around 78-80 and he moves more and uses more of the cage.
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DZ

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell

Amazing...we do everything by the book to ensure the welfare of our animals, and then we have to stop and realize, the animals can't read the book were using.

ROTFLMFAO
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DZ

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell