Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can you please post up a photo/photos of your set-ups that will indicate the so-called range of temps from 55F - 100F in a single arrangement? Not looking for anything more than photos of this. Thanks.
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Jerry Kruse

"Yesterday is history.....tomorrow is a mystery.........but today is a gift -- that is why it is called the present". - Master Oogway

Hmmmmm. Seems many of us want to see this.

Well Jerry, Its not about a cage, its about an approach. You can do it with any cage, be it a glass tank, a sweater box, or any other type cage. In fact, its more important to know, what kinds you CANNOT do it with.

Its also not about what I do, its about what you do and what your snakes are looking for.

What I am doing here on this forum is to allow folks who WANT something else for their snakes to be aware it can be allowed. Not just follow the methods so often given here.

Or I offer methods that will prevent many of the problems mentioned here.

The problem is, your comments, you like others seem to house some hositity. An example is, you said, your SO CALLED temp range. Hmmmmmmmmmm that sounds hostle to me.

Buddy(in this case, buddy is hostle) I do offer as wide of range as I can. Its not so called.

To paint you a better picture, I consider crawling temps to not be very important. Snakes will crawl at any temp where they can physically move, to a point of slightly below death(on the hot side). What I feel is important is, when snakes are coiled or sitting(what ever configuration you want) at a temp. That means they are choosing that temp. Then the body temp they move from that area, becomes very important. You see, if a spot becomes too cool, the snake will move to a warmer place. And visa versa.

The average day on our study site reveals a sitting temperature range of, 14C to 34C. We have seen a few snakes above 34C, that is, sitting under their own control. But its rare. The above data is from 18 yrs of field work. And many many hundreds of observations.

Of course the naive person could average that and say, these snakes perfer 24F. As this is the average IBT of snakes controlling their temps taken over 18 years on one site. You see, thats kinda what goes on here. And with science. They average and pigeonhole. Many keep them around the average of what the data has shown.

Unfortunatele, thats not what snakes are about. You see, the snakes also expressed reasons they were at those "different" temps.

That is, from asking more questions, further investigation, we saw that the snakes at the highest temps had either a large food bolus, or were gravid, or in some cases, both. Then the snakes at the higher temps, not necessarily the highest temps, included food bolus, gravid, and in shed. Then add sick or injured individuals. These made up the bulk of individuals using the higher temps.

The middle temps were commonly snakes in a hunting pose or moving from place to place. The lower temps were snakes just becoming active. Of course, how do we know? Snakes recently becoming active have a much higher head temp then clocal temp. They tend to warm their heads up first.

Snakes in a hunting position have a very characteristic position and have a consistant temp, head to IBT.

Again, higher temps are used by injured or sick snakes. In most cases they seek higher temps immediately after being tagged or having a radio installed. hahahahahahahahaha that sounds funny.

Of course there is a percentage of individuals that seek higher temps for unexplained or hard to explain reasons. But that is rare. Its rare to find a fresh shed healthy individual at the higher temps, that is not gravid or containing a food bolus. But it does occur. On the otherhand, snakes with food bolus are rarely found sitting out at cool temps.

On the otherhand(how many hands are there?) we find individuals sitting out coiled up at very low temps(near freezing). FOR NO APPARENT REASON. hahahahahahahahahahaha but because this behavior has been repeated, it does have reason, we just do not understand what the reason is.

Without question there is much we do not understand, but there is lots we do. We do understand snakes use a range of temps for manipulating their body temps to FIT a range of needs. These needs include such simple things as food digestion, reproductive needs, immune system needs, growth, and most importantly, TO CONSERVE energy. I keep adding stuff.

The reality is, the snakes we study, maintain the lowest body temps, year around, unless on or more of the above needs requires higher temps. The key to this statement is, year around.

That means, anytime of year, With our montane snakes, they will seek temps between 55F and 65f, as a base, YEAR AROUND. Then they use different areas in their habitat to increase their body temps for short periods of time to achieve needed tasks.

So JKruse, you can apply this to any cage. The difference being, how hard it is to do. Its very easy if you keep a room cool and include small local heat sources. Or you can do that backwards, have a hot room and apply cool areas. It kind of does not matter. JUST DO IT.

You will have a hard time allowing a wide range with a well insulated cage. Like, sweater boxes completely contained in a wooden rack. Here a small heat source will heat the entire cage.

As I have mentioned, BEHAVIORALLY, all reptiles occur in areas that include above and below what they needs. Their behavior is to seek what they need out of this range. In tropical areas, the range is rather small. They can find cool but not cold. They can find hot but not really hot. In areas like where I live, the range is very wide, we get extreme heat(118F) and very cold(13F) So at my house, there is a range of, 13F to 118F. And we have all manner of snakes. But that is the extreme range. In most cases, there is a smaller range, say, 32F to 95F(air temps which have very little to do with snakes)(but thats another story) Then there is another smaller range the snakes actually use commonly, 55F to 95F. What we have seen in the field, snakes maintain these temps year around. Althought in some places and in sometimes, one end or the other cannot be found, so they wait until it is available.

So why do folks keep them at 82.786F?????? cause they can is about all I can say, because natural snakes or even captives will pick from a wide range. IF ALLOWED(these last two words are important)

So please excuse me for thinking like I do. I see snakes as animals that do lots of things, they are always looking for the above and always making choices as to how, where, when and MORE to do these things. I see them as animals that do lots of stuff for very difined reasons and other things I have no idea(ok, I have lots of ideas) why they are doing them. Then to see them in a shoe box(any small constricted cage) and have their fine keepers tell that is all there is to snakes. They discribe the snakes in the box, and not the snakes as to what they actually are(the ones in nature)

It does pain me to see folks rationalize the snakes in their boxes, as the REAL snakes. Its very clear that wild snakes ARE THE SNAKES. The snakes in boxes are just our snakes in our boxes. These boxes do not define them.

You appear to be a student of human behavior, Yes, you can keep a person in a tiny box, but is that persons behavior comparable to a free ranging person??????? A single person in a tiny box comparable to a free ranging member of a tribe or social group?????????

You see, you can isolate and confine a person or animal. But then the question becomes, WHY? and to be so foolish as to describe that isolated person or animal as NORMAL. hmmmmmmmmmmmm foolish I say.

I hope most of you that do this, do not know any better, but I do question why you refuse to consider what these snakes really are! What say you???

NO YOU DO!!!!

sorry FR couldn't resist LOL!!!
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

you just need a cool enough back round temp to work with and heat can be added by many means anywhere you want in the enclosure. What he is suggesting is past most people understanding because they don't have the means to offer this type of setup to their animals, but if you had a cool enough room you could easily make such temp grads, they may or may not make your snakes fertility or fecundity improve. A few breeding's are meaningless for concrete data. I suggest in using whatever works for you. I wouldn't mind having a large room like that and give the snakes all those choices and see what they would pick. We give them very few choices in the matter.

If your snakes don't live in excess of 15 to 20 years something is wrong. Mistakes where made.

It could be you, but most times genes are blamed for OUR failures as keepers.
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

Clear and easy to understand.

FR, thank you for the interesting info.

Thank you! I feel like I just left a great lecture and want to put what I'm hearing into practice in one way or another.
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Sometimes I think the kid with two pet snakes has something that those of us with 50 to 200 lost a long time ago.

The point you are making are SOLELY FROM FIELD STUDIES. That's great, relevant, and should be published. But how does this get reconfigured into captivity????????????

Apples and oranges.

UNLESS, you have a HUGE area that IS NOT economically conducive to MOST persons that visit this forum unless they are being funded by the USFW, Nat Geo, or WCS.

SOOOO, if YOU have a way that this is possible under MUCH MORE RESTRICTIVE conditions, SHOW US this so-called way of doing so. That's all that is being asked of you. It's almost like you're sitting there with your poker sunglasses on with a full hand but refuse to show it. Cash-in I say!!!
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Jerry Kruse

"One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it". - Master Oogway

Frank, I'm NOT being hostile with you.

GRRRRRR....!!! See? Now THAT was hostile.

But I never said that. I just want to see a picture of what you claim might be possible. That's all.
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Jerry Kruse

"One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it". - Master Oogway