Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I hang out on another Ball python related forum as well as this one, and it seems to me that many people over there are just misinformed when it comes to their snakes.
Lately it's been "my snake isn't eating" and when they list their setup and temps, they all are rockin' overhead heating with 100w bulbs...and they wonder why their nocturnal snakes aren't coming out to eat...

Boggles my mind.

30 seconds of research before buying would tell you a 90% terrestrial species does better with underbelly heat, and a nocturnal species would probably prefer not having a 100w bulb beaming down on it...
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

Thank you. I totally agree. I don't know how many times I have showed up at someone's house to help them with a reptile issue only to find they didn't research beyond the advice given to them by the 16 year old at Petco. Heat lamp on a BP, heat rocks in with Bearded Dragons, a sandy bottomed cage for a newt or frog with no misting, UV lights set on top of glass cage toppers (and then they ask me why their gecko walks funny, or won't walk at all).

Ten minutes of Googling and you would have a lot of the essentials need to keep a reptile alive and healthy. 2 hours and you will have instructions on how to let them live like Gods and possibly even produce your own.
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Lincoln, NE
0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly
2.1 Normals, 1.0 Thayeri, 0.1 Thayeri X Alterna, 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

I have found that it's not really the fact they are using a heat lamp, but rather the amount of time it's on. If you use that lamp too far in the evening hours then it affects normal activity greatly. But, if you you use a lamp from the hours of say 8 to like 4 in afternoon. Then its okay. I run lights on my two ball pythons that I keep in my room and run the lights during those hours. The temp during that time is around 82-84 and when they are off its around 75-77. I have never had an issue with shedding or feeding and my two inside my room I have had the longest and they are honestly the best eaters and shedders I have. So I just think that its not so much the fact those people were using a bulb but rather how they were using it.
Stephen Eastridge