Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So after looking at the house we're about to move into I've decided that I don't really have the room to build the large cage that I wanted to. I'm planning on building a cage that will house 6-8 snakes, all of which will be boas or pythons. I wanted it to be a minimum of 4ft long and 2ft deep and probably around 6 feet high. But this would be very difficult to fit in our room so now I'm thinking about putting it in the garage instead. Since I wouldn't be limited by space I could make the cage even bigger. But I'm worried about temperature in the garage. We usually keep the house around 65 but the garage has no heat I have no control over the temperature of the garage. I live in California so it's not like we have uber cold winters, but it will drops down to the low 40's or occasionally 30's at night so the garage can get pretty cold. But we are planning on putting some carpet in the garage which will help a little. I'm thinking if I get the cage set up and monitor the temps for a few days before moving the snakes in I'll be okay. Has anyone ever kept their setup in the garage before? Is it doable with a good setup and vigilance?

build a small room in the garage with a wall mounted heater.
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Jason

I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but did you just say a single cage for all of those snakes?

No the cage is going to be divided into 5 or 6 sections. It's going to be like a bookcase so the floor of one section is the roof of another. Make sense?

I think you will have a very difficult time keeping the proper temps when the room temp drops to the 30's and 40's. I also don't think you will see any temp difference with carpet.
You will either have to heat the entire garage or build a small heated room like I suggested.
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Jason

We actually just finished putting carpet down in the garage and it has made a noticeable difference. The garage itself seems to be fairly well insulated. *Usually* during the winter the temperature only drops outside to the upper 40's/low 50's, but we're having this freak cold spell where it's been in the 20's at night and 30's during the day which is VERY unusual. It even "snowed" a little. But I checked the temp last night in the garage and it was still in the 40's despite it being 24 degrees outside. Once we get the cages set up I'm going to run them for a few days to see how they maintain their heat, I decided to use a 40watt radiant heat panel to heat each section.

Since we're renting I don't really want to build a room in the garage even though I could probably do one that is non-permanent. I can always get a portable heater and heat the entire garage on the super cold nights if I have to...