Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i'm going to get a cape york spotted python and i was wondering is an under tank heater alright for them because thats all the pet shop here can get and can they stay on mice there whole lives or am i better off getting rats for it thanks any advice would be good bye

An under the tank heater will be fine so long as you keep the substrate shallow (spotteds don't burrow so don't worry about that) so the heat won't dissapate, and monitor how hot the surface of the substrate gets. Remember that spotteds are nocturnal so it is rare to see them during the day and without a night-time heat lamp you probably won't see any nocturnal behavior.
As far as feeding goes they are a very enthusiastic/aggressive feeder (never get between a spotted and its mouse), so you don't have to worry about problematic feeders. Spotteds will never get big enough to take a rat so you're stuck with mice or rat pups/pinkies when your spotted becomes an adult.
Great choice for your snake; Cape Yorks are my favorite too!
Good Luck!
P.S. I hope you are getting a CB baby, not an adult or WC!

thanks i went and ask in the chat room and they said only put the under tank heater on one side is that true and i will be getting a cb baby. and i will be having fake grass mat in the tank is that alright whats the best hidding box for spotted pythons will i need 2 of them one down each side of the tank and i'm starting to breed my mice know so i have enough food but i've only got 1 female and 1 male so with the litter shes having in about a week i'm going to keep 2 females to breed with there father is that bad the pet shop said it was alright to do that to feed to a snake well thats it for know bye
tara

First off; great to see you doing your homework first (and getting a CB)!
Yes, only put the UTH on one side of the tank and the water bowl on the other side. This is so that there is a basking side and a cooler side. As for the "fake grass" (astroturf) it is not a good idea to use it! The best substrate for spotted pythons is bark.
I use "Zoo Meds Reptibark"

or "orchid bark";
both of these are fine, but if you can't find one of these, pretty much any other bark substrate will work. Bark is similar to their natural environment and it gives off the right amount of humidity, astroturf will dehydrate your spotteds and is harder to clean than bark (bark can be spot cleaned but astroturf must be hosed down).
For the hides you can "kill two birds with one stone" by getting a Vision Granite Mountain Water Bowl, because they have a hollow cavity underneath the bowl which snakes love to hide in! Just cut a small semicircular hole on the side of the bowl for your snakes to enter, and they will probably spend most of their lives under there! For the basking side just get a flat piece of cork bark of the appropriate size. The bark is flat and tight-fitting to them so they will use it ALOT more often than store-bought hides (plus it's simpler and much cheaper). Also get branches because spotteds like to climb!
As for breeding, I'm not sure about back breeding but I don't think that it will be a problem if he's mite-free, healthy (no bad sheds, good color, no parasites, etc.), has no genetic defects, and is non aggressive.
Here is a website that has pics of Vision Granite Mountain Water Bowls.

www.aaareptilesupply.com/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=D1

Here is a website about breeding spotteds.

www.smuggled.com/BriBar10.htm

Hope that helps!
Steven

have you had any problems with mites using bark i've got a book here and it says that bark is a good place for mites to hang out in thats what i'm worried about and how often does the enclosure have to be cleaned out i was thinking every 4-7 days and is it alright to use newspaper and how many sheets whould i need to put down thanks bye
tara

You should only need to worry about mites if you live in a mite infested area or if you get a WC, but if one or both of those two applies to you than yes, bark is a good breeding ground for mites. The bottom line is this: if there are no mites to begin with then there are no mites to begin breeding in your bark! I've never had mite problems myself.
You can "spot clean" individual "poops" every 4-7 days because bark is a very clean substrate that absorbs and isolates messes and "poops". If you are independently wealthy or have a never ending supply of bark than you can change the substrate every week. If not, than just change it every 6 months to a year. Make sure you change it if it begins to smell like ammonia though!
I don't use newspaper so I can't tell you about how thick the layers should be. I do know that newspaper must be changed every day and doesn't hold moisture.
Hope that helps!