My opinions differ than many other experienced herpers on many of these subjects. But I feel that on many of these matters there is no one "right way" or "wrong way", but many acceptable ways.
Like handling, for instance. I think once the reptile is docile it can be handled any amount of time. Many people say it will stress the animal if it is held more that a certain amount of time (like 30 mins I have heard a lot) but I don't feel this is true at all. I think that once the snake is accepting of you and tame, that it is mostly indifferent of your presence and just simply will enjoy being out and experiencing things it can't experience in it's cage. I don't know if I would ever go so far as to say that they are "curious" creatures,.. but they certainly seem interested in new and different things. If even just for a short while.
Your basking spot may get a tad high, but otherwise sounds fine. The ambients are PERF.
Newspaper is ugly, but it is the most convenient and sterile substrate I have ever used. It is highly absorbant, easy to roll up, toss out and replace. It does not get stuck on thier food or accidently eaten, like other chip-based wood substrates. Just make sure there are enough sheets thick. I kind of have a system of approximately 5 sheets per foot of snake, but I increase this geometrically as they become huge monsters and even add additional thick "corner shots", which are very thick magazines or whole newspapers for the corners and ends of the cages. When these snakes get really big the amount of urine is just phenominal and you have to compensate for the geometric increase of it.
No, low humidity is NOT ok. What breeder was that that said 20% was okay as long as they have a soak bowl?? These snakes are tropical and need very high humidiy levels. I have yet to proove my theory, but I theorize that tropical pythons and boas contract lung infections when the ambient humidity levels are low and their lung tissue dries and even cracks, allowing an infection to enter and take hold. I theorize that, as long as their lung tissue remains moist and supple that this will not happen. But humidity is easy to generate. If you go with newspaper as a substrate and your cage vents are not overly small, then you can simply spill some water on the newspaper under your basking spot a couple of times each day and this should generate decent humidity. You can mist with a water misting bottle too. But none of this will work too well if your cage vents are too large. Overly large vents allow humid air to escape rapidly.
Well, that about covers it. I hope this has helped.
>>Hi,
>> i've owned pleanty of snakes before so i'm familiar with the general care of snakes. most of my experience comes from Ball pythons but i've always wanted a Burmese and finally have the space required so this weekend at the NARBC in Chicago i broke down and bought a pair of Burms. 1 Granite female and 1 het for granite male. both are about 24" long and about a month old. with that being said, i have a few questions.
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>>1) How much could i handle them per day? they seem to be very tame and docile. i've had them 2 days and held each of them for about an hour each day. is that enough, to much or just right?
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>>2) the ambient temperature is currently 85-90 with a basking spot at 95-100. does that sound about right?
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>>3) the substraight is that green carpet-like turf. any better ideas?
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>>4) the lighting is 1 100 watt basking spotlamp and 1 20" 8.0 UVB florecent fixture. Is that OK?
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>>5)the humidity is very low, about 20% but the breeder i bought him from suggests that as long as there is a bowl big enough for them to soak in (wich there is) they will be just fine. i've herd that they are very succeptable to resperatory infections and low humidity only increses this risk so is the bowl good enough?
>>
>>well, thats all i really have questions about so please excuse my very poor spelling and thanks for your attention
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Human "progress" equates to nature's demise.
