Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I have posted a similar question in The caging Forum. I have a male WLP. I have had him for several months now and before he was in a 40gal breeder tank with a heat emmiter and a screen top. I have moved him into a Vision cage with the heat emmiter. I get the temp around 84-85 and it stays concistent. However the Humidity is only 35 percent. I do have a large water bowel under the emmiter. The heat emmiter is in a 5 1/2 ceramic dome fixture. He is having very bad sheds. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tape up most of the vent holes. I have vision cages and they suck just as bad as aquariums do for humidity. Thats just the way it is. 35% is REALLY low! Im suprised your snake isnt suffering from RIs! And if its that low your going to have to mist more than 5 times a day. Just do like i say, tape up the back three vent holes, and the light dome will allow enough air inside. Watch out though, it will make the cage much warmer inside. Dont want to fry your snake. Soak the white lip once every three days I would say. If his sheds are bad, I would imagine his very dried out and crinkled. 35%?? Are you sure? Thats really low. His scales are probably dimpled like crazy. Im sure you know just by holding him that they have ultra thin skin.
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>>Hi,
>> I have posted a similar question in The caging Forum. I have a male WLP. I have had him for several months now and before he was in a 40gal breeder tank with a heat emmiter and a screen top. I have moved him into a Vision cage with the heat emmiter. I get the temp around 84-85 and it stays concistent. However the Humidity is only 35 percent. I do have a large water bowel under the emmiter. The heat emmiter is in a 5 1/2 ceramic dome fixture. He is having very bad sheds. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tormato is right, humidity is way too low! Start misting a lot more or get some other kind of humidity device. I use an ultrasonic humidifier with the output piped into the enclosure (also a Vision)for my WLP's. Also, what kind of substrate are you using. Try using Cypress Mulch, it holds moisture well. I also keep a moist moss filled hide box for each cage so they can use to regulate the humidity they need themselves. Also keep the heat on one side of the cage only so there can be some sort of differential in temps so you snake can regulate temps on their own. Also, I soak my WLP's in room temp water, about 1" deep in a rubbermaid tub during shed for a few hours. Hope this helps.

Robert

Well, I can’t recall ever posting a reply in two places, but I couldn’t resist when I saw that you had posted the same question here in the Python Forum. So here’s my answer from the Caging Forum, with apologies to anyone who feels I’m wasting space. Of course, readers in this forum will already know of my great affection for white-lipped pythons (!).

Sorry the photo is of such poor quality, but I think it illustrates some key points in my white-lipped python husbandry program (based on a sum total of one animal only)

First, the blood on my forearm is sad testimony to the failure of my several years old “Just keep trying to handle him gently; surely he’ll calm down eventually” policy. Photo taken two days ago. Gee, I’m glad I wore gloves. Ouch.

I’m also using a Vision cage, in this case a three foot one. There’s a 50 watt Pro Products heat panel (not visible) overhead on the right side of the ceiling over the large, low hide container which takes up almost half the floor space. The hide’s access for the snake is through a hole cut in the top. I currently use CareFresh for substrate in the hide. I try to maintain enough dampness overall in the CareFresh just to suppress its dust, then as needed I saturate one section with water to elevate the humidity without making the python rest on an all wet substrate.

The blue container also has top access and contains a couple inches of water. I increased the size of his water dishes a few times as he frequently upended them until I wised up and provided something that was stable and provided security. He does utilize it for soaking occasionally, especially when opaque.

I use unprinted paper on the cage floor. As the winter progresses and the humidity gets harder to maintain, I spray down the cage with water every few days with my trusty garden sprayer.

I find it quite difficult to meet the needs of animals requiring high humidity in Vision cages. But I bought a bunch of Visions before I realized this so I try to make them work. Anyway, there is no perfect cage. If necessary, you could cover up some of the vents in the back. That really helps, but also promotes the growth of molds. Oh, and I also run a warm air humidifier in the coldest months in the room where the WLP is housed.

When I tried to maintain this animal with under cage heating, I just never could seem to get things fine tuned properly. But maybe I just wasn’t very clued in to its needs at the time. I either had it too dry and the poor animal had lousy thousand-piece sheds (and he avoided the UTH), or the water dish kept being knocked over and by the time I attended to it the snake was lying in a bacterial soup. The present set-up seems to work great and provides him with lots of security.

I really wish I could provide this animal with a large, tall cage with opportunities for climbing. I’m sure he would utilize the vertical space at night. But at least now he’s physically thriving. Too bad for me I can’t get him an attitude transplant

-Joan

I used to wear gloves and a sweatshirt when handling the biters but they always got me on the wrists. Those heat sensors work! I took my gloves, cut off the sleeves of an old sweatshirt and sewed them onto my gloves. Now I usually get it in the face!

Get him a plastic container, such as you find Walmart selling for storage. Get some heavy duty cable ties and drill a couple of holes in the lid to one side, match the holes in the cage on the same side and run the cable ties through that. Put some holes (also drilled) on the sides and in the lid of the tank - SMALL holes!! - for air circulation.

Put in a moist substrate; check with a pet store like Petco or something along those lines, that sells snakes, and see what they can get you.

Take a small water bottle and spray the inside of the tank - NOT the substrate, the sides of the tank, the lid. Also put in a big water bowl. That will help with the humidity, and you can gauge how moist it is, obviously.

Should help, this is what I had to do for my ball python, she was way too dry on the standard aspen chips that we keep our other snakes in. Give it a couple of days to really start to moisten up, and yes the substrate will get a little moist, but if done correctly, it won't be soaked.

~Seliah