Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know its only one season but so far the results from my little experiment with increasing temp ranges are pretty mixed.

From a feeding and weight gain perspective the experiment was a great success. All but one of my animals ate well into November last year and went down into hibernation with excellent weight.

From a breeding perspective I've gotten all slugs which is disappointing to say the least. Pairs were housed together through hibernation and only separated briefly during feedings. My personal opinion is that this form needs a pretty long and cold hibernation period. While feeding them longer and more heavily did increase their growth rates and weight gains, I think the increased up time cut into their hibernation period too much.

Moving forward I intend to keep the higher temps and wider temperature gradients but come September, I'm cutting the heat back, feed off and putting them down October 1!
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

Tony,
Did you increase temps overall, or did you provide a warmer basking spot with your usual background temp?

Here on the West coast, I've had kings and milks use quite high basking temps if the heater was small - as in the heat cable I use. But if I tried 4 inch Flexwatt for example, much less time. Makes sense I guess. Takes more time at higher temp on a 3/16 inch diameter heat cable to raise internal body temps than a big piece of Flexwatt (for a young king/milk).

Good luck with the experiments, keep reporting results.
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Mark

The overall gradient was increased by 1) lowering the room temp and 2)increasing basking spot temp but using back heat instead of belly heat. This way I was able to get ti much higher without impacting overall cage temps.

I don't think the temps casued this as much as the shorter duration in hibernation. That said this was a cold winter and the time they did have down was quality time.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

Yeah, I do that too for an adult Pueblan. Here she is (barely visible) behind that rock back there. What I like about the setup is that the heat pad can be cranked without a safety issue really. In Spring, the heater in the pic was often well into the mid to high 90s while she pressed up against it.

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Mark