Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It is really, really dry in our house over the winter. I've tried damp moss boxes for my two larger snakes right before they shed, but they just don't seem to like them. Lately when they go blue I've just soaked them every other day and sprayed them a little and sprayed the inside walls of the tank every so often until they shed. This has worked okay, though I'm not getting perfect sheds.

But Dexter, the smaller one, goes blue without me noticing. Yesterday I looked in on him and he was all crusty, skin falling off. I soaked him for about 12 minutes and he shed completely within ten minutes of putting him back in his tank.

But larger water bowls, plastic on the cage tops, none of that does anything, I can't get the humidity sustained in the tanks above 30%!

I feel like I can manage their sheds finally, although not without some small problems. But it can't be good for their overall health to be in such dry conditions all winter. On the other hand, I can't be the only one with a dry house all winter!

Thoughts or suggestions? (This is Dexter this morning, happy after his shed last night and anticipating a meal in another hour or so.)

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1.1 Florida Kingsnake
1.0 Kisatchie Cornsnake

The humidity really sucks... If it gets any drier in my house, I'm going to resemble my snakes...

My solution with my little lavendar is upside down butter bowls with Carefresh stuffed in them... the one I soaked down some, and he seems to love it when he's getting ready to shed... The other one, he doesn't seem to like...

I ended up running into the same problem you did at first, with the thrashing snake... I gave him the hide as soon as I saw what he was doing and he hid in it for probly an hour, then came out and had a perfect shed...

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~Maggie~

"Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious."
1.1 Cal Kings
1.0 Mali Uromastyx
1.0 Brooksi
0.1 Red Belly Piranha
1.0 Quarter Horse
1.0 Australian Shepherd

What are the temps in your cages? Is the water bowl big or small? If it is smaller, my first thought would be to increase the size of the water bowl.
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Genesis 1:1

I have upsized my water bowls a while back hoping that would do the trick, but have seen no difference in humidity levels inside the tanks.

This is a 20long and I can't fit a bigger water dish in here:

This is a 30breeder and a huge dog bowl:

And this is Dexter's 10gallon, probably an okay size water dish compared to his size, but maybe I could fit a little bigger one in here. Not much room:

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1.1 Florida Kingsnake
1.0 Kisatchie Cornsnake

Cover half the top of the screen lid.
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Todd Hughes

I posted before I was done. Temps are between 85-86 during the day on the warm side inside the hide. Probably 8 degrees cooler on the other side, and between 5-10 degrees cooler overall at night.

Dexter, by the way, spends ALL his time on the warm side at those temps. He seems quite happy and healthy, he eats, maybe he cruises around at night more than I think, but he never hangs out in his cool hide that I see and I've tried a couple different hides he might like. He LOVES that log on his warm side!
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1.1 Florida Kingsnake
1.0 Kisatchie Cornsnake

Just a large water bowl wont do it. even in a covered tank just a bowl of flat water doesn't do too much. If it is moving or disturbed with an airstone or pump of some kind it would be a different story.

You need to decrease ventilation so that any moisture you have in the tank doesn't immediately float out the top (along with all your heat). You have to find a better way to cover the top of the tank. A board covering the screen with a cutout for the light might be enough. Or you may have to go with glass or plexiglass, There is no way to have a humid tank in a dry room with a screen top.

Secondly, I like aspen as a substrate for all of my more dry climate species. But here in CO its CRAZY dry and so my tropical species require a substrate that can stand some more humidity. Aspen will rot if you get it wet. I would suggest using cypress mulch (personally think it looks nicer than aspen anyway). That way you can spray down the substrate. Since it seems like you have display tanks, for a pretty and functional substrate I like to mix some coco brick bedding with some cypress and some sand to create natural looking soils. See the corn vivarium below.

You could also use a humidity chamber. It should be solid colored and full to the top with spagnum. If you only keep it in there before he sheds then he won't be comforatble with it and use it. If it is in all the time I garantee he would live in it.

or you could just use dirt...

Thanks, that's a good looking setup you have there. I tried saran wrap over the water dish and it didn't help, but was probably only covering about 50% of the screen. Maybe I overestimate the amount of ventilation required?
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1.1 Florida Kingsnake
1.0 Kisatchie Cornsnake

Just a little ventilation is needed.

This is how I house lots of cal kings - yours would need even more humidity.

I had a similar problem with my Thayeri. He would shed in fragments and needed help. A trick I found to work for him was to wait until he started his shed and then replace his substrate (newspaper or carpet) with blue shop paper towels (the kind you get from Autozone; they're really thick and tough) soaked in water. The I placed a large kitchen sponge, also soaked, in the cage. Finally, since it was an aquarium, I covered about 80% of the lid with books to keep the humidity in. Worked great.
I've since moved him to a 41 qt. plastic tub in a rack with side ventilation only. He does better, but I still provide him with a humidity box around shedding time.
I've also found that in a plastic box you can use that green lizard carpet stuff to hold moisture. I toyed with this stuff, and it worked great, except that as my collection grew, I got tired of cleaning it. Besides, my snakes always burrowed underneath it anyway. I've since switched to newspaper.
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1.1.0 Hondurans Het Amel
1.1.0 Hondurans Anery, Het Hypo
0.1.0 Honduran Hypo
0.2.0 Pueblans
1.0.0 Thayeri MSP
0.0.1 GBK Blair's Phase
1.0.0 California King
0.0.1 Speckled King WC
0.0.1 Jungle Carpet
0.1.0 Ball, Normal
0.0.1 Sulcata
0.1.0 Girlfriend, Caucasius Mexicana, Fiancee Phase

I know you said he doesn't like the moist hide w/ moss, but maybe you just need to build a better hide. Get a good sized Rubbermaid "Durable" tupperware, the solid ones with the red or white lids that you can find at the supermarket. Get a hole saw blade for your cordless drill and cut a hole in the top. Trim the excess plastic off with a razorblade so it's nice and clean. Put some new zealand moss in there. I have about 30 kings and milks and they all love these hides if provided with one. My Vivid Reptiles line splendida female rarely ever comes out of hers. I'll post a pic of one when I get a chance, but I'm pretty lazy. lol

Zach Whitman gave you some great advice, here's some things that I've tried with success for my reptiles that need more humidity (it's 30% here half the time normally!).
1) different substrate. If the snakes can take it, use a compressed (and then rehydrated) coconut bedding, but I've found this tends to be much too wet for most snakes (great for toads and/or more arboreal species). A good mix is usually 50/50 orchid bark and the coconut bedding.
2) Cover the top! Use plexiglass, books, whatever, but what I've done and had work exceptionally well is a damp towel (especially if the towel is dampened with HOT water) over most or all of the top. If you use a UTH, a damp towel over the entire top of the cage works wonders.
3) Fill a cup with HOT water out of the sink. Make sure it's steaming. Place the cup in the tank, cover the top, leave it sit. Obviously, if you're concerned about the temperature of the water, keep an eye on the animals. Faucet water is not usually hot enough to burn immediately, but microwaved water can be. Take it out after a little while, preferably with opening the top of the cage as little as possible. I used to do this when I had waterdragons, and it worked exceptionally well.
4) Of course, regular misting. But, fill up the water bottle with HOT water. If you are concerned about the hotness of the water, fill up the bottle, then spray it on your hand from about a foot away. At most, the mist is warm, not nearly as hot as it was coming out of the faucet. The warm mist raises the humidity much better than cool mist does.
5) Moss. Stick some kind of moss in strategic places in the cage, and when you mist, focus on the moss in particular. The moss will continue to evaporate and dry out and raise the humidity...and it makes the cage look pretty cool, too. Keep in mind the moss doesn't have to be sopping wet, just damp to the touch. I use this with my baboon spider, and decorate my cal king's cage with it. Looks nice dry or wet.
6) Running water and live plants. These may not be the best things for a kingsnake cage, though. My calking has a live plant in her cage, but only as long as she is not big enough to destroy it. You may want to try a spiderplant or something low and bushy that would be harder for a snake to crush, but still be small enough to fit in a cage.

Good luck!

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

I've gotten a lot of great ideas. But the very simple idea of putting a damp towel over the entire top is something that I will try immediately. Never thought of that. Plastic on the top did not raise the humidity at all.

Thanks!
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1.1 Florida Kingsnake
1.0 Kisatchie Cornsnake

If it works, it works! Using hot water helps a lot too.

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

You almost described my cage setup to a "t". Orchid bark, coconut husk bedding, moss, assorted plants... My little guy loves hiding under the pothos and I've seen him peering out from under the moss as well.

Picture of the setup before I moved him into it, just getting the plants established first, then added water bowl and him:

It's hard to see, but his "cool" side hide is on the right, up under one of the pothos vines.
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake possible mix (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

Very cool setup! Is that river rocks on the bottom for drainage? What'd you use to keep the substrate seperate from the rocks? With my kingsnake's adult size cage I'm looking to do something like that.

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

Actually, I went to Michael's craft store, bought three sheets of the plastic with square holes in it for... I don't know exactly, threading yarn through and making crafts..? Anyway, I bought three black ones, so they wouldn't be noticeable, cut them to fit, and they're on top of the river rocks. I mixed the orchid bark and the ground coconut husk together, putting extra orchid bark on top for decoration. I bought those plants at Lowe's, but rinsed the potting soil off the roots before adding them, since I was initially thinking of keeping amphibians or lizards in this terrarium. The hides are natural wood, purchased at Petsmart along with the moss. The Pothos came from cuttings off my mother's houseplants and I let them grow for a while in a glass jar of water, to get a good root system established before putting them in the terrarium. So far, the heatpad (under the left side) has only dried out one plant a little, but I think it can recover. The humidity is moderate, but the soil isn't saturated, so it shouldn't harm my snake.

One terrarium book I own suggested using thin sheets of A/C filter to keep the substrate out of the rocks, but since most of them have anti-allergen coatings now, I wasn't sure how safe that would be.
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake possible mix (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

Creative method! A coworker of mine uses polyfoam, a white... foam like substance. I don't know what the heck it's used for when it's not commandeered for vivariums, but it's pretty effective. His vivariums are a lot more water based, with a fountain and live moss in them, though, so your method might work better for a drier sort of vivarium.

Thanks so much!!

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire