Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a rack with back heat tape and containers appr. 22 inches wide by 13 inches deep.I know that you are supposed to offer the snakes a range of temps to choose from, but my rack temps only differ about 8 degrees from front to back. Is this acceptable? Are there racks that offer bigger temp ranges?
I have hondurans, nelsons,sinaloans, graybands, pyros and zonata. Right now I keep the mountain kings in different cages with cooler temps.What range would you set the temps at realizing I only get a 8 degree variance? Thanks

Most breeders use racks in insulated buildings, and what that means is most of those snakes are housed in conditions with a small range of temps available. Not always, but mostly. So it works. May not be optimum, but it isn't fatal either. Just a nice comfy middle. Comfy for you too. As long as the snake is not asked to deal with extreme situations, it may not have to use extreme temps. A snake that is fed well doesn't need cool temps to conserve. A snake that does not have to deal with parasites may not need to seek higher temps. Just throwing out some possibilities.

What you can do if desired to change things up is to use a temperature controller with a nightime drop feature. This gets the snakes some variance at least at night, assuming the room temp lowers at night. Great for zonata IMO. Or get a huge cage for each snake pair and have a really warm end and a cool end.

Not likely in the US. We like lots of snakes in the smallest possible footprint.., one that we can stow away easily. And we want those snakes to breed perfectly and eat every time and never bite or squirm and "get better looking with every shed" and be the ideal that we dream up in our minds. Actually not bad specifications for a pet snake. I would want one of those too.
-----
Mark

Thanks for the reply Mark. I use a Helix controller so I can set the 8 degree temp range, altough it does not drop at night. What would you set the temp range at? Currently it is about 76 on the cool end and 84 degrees on the warm end.
I use a wine cooler to brumate the snakes I am going to attempt to breed.My understanding is too high of temps(near 90 or above) can reduce the fertility of males, therefore I set the max at about 84.

Too high of temps (or high temps for too long) and too low of temps (again, too low for a long time) can kill the male's sperm, or reduce viability.

You and I do not know what the ideal temp range is.. only the snake does. That is why it is important to offer a range of temps. The male will decide what he needs. That is why in Spring in the wild, it is the male snakes that are basking first, like 2 weeks before females do. The males are WARMING themselves to a suitable temperature to ensure better virility for mating in the following weeks. Yes, I said warming. Kind of contradicts what caresheets say, doesn't it? So giving the males a range is vital to optimum success. Cooling alone is not it.

I wish I could tell you what the range is. I only know the following from breeding kingsnakes: When I gave the males access to cool night temps, like down to 65 deg for example, they did great no matter if day temps were 80 or 85 or whatever. I had perfect clutches every time, all eggs alive and well.

It is funny that we refridgerate our snakes at 55 deg, then put them in a plastic box at 82 deg and think to ourselves, "now breed, snake, breed!" How silly does that sound? They breed in spite of it though most of the time. That is because the drive to reproduce is very powerful for any organism. Starving, war-ridden people in the most dangerous regions in Africa have kids no matter how bad conditions are. The drive is very powerful.

It would be great to have one part of the cage at 60-65 and another part at 85 plus with a gradient inbetween just like nature provides (even hot deserts have cool temps down in burrows) in many snake habitats in Spring. But that is tough to do in a house, and nearly impossible in a confined space like a sweaterbox. So do the best you can do to shoot for that range, and let the male decide what he needs.
-----
Mark