Reptile & Amphibian Forums

this is mogley makin his nightly rounds. he's a few days overdue for feeding so hes been goin around his cage alot lately. i just hate when i defrost his mice and he only eats one out of four. so im makin sure hes hungry anyways...i wanted to take a pic of the little girl i just got in today from Exotics By Nature but my camera went dead after this pic so i couldnt. youll be seeing her in a couple days for sure. -Mike
p.s. how often do you supposed snake crack thir ribs? do you think its a common thing that we just never know about? whenever you see a snake skeleton its always got a few healed ribs. but perhaps those were injuries from out in the wild. i just started thinking about this when mogley fell...

Hey mike,

I'm not sure if that’s a picture of your snake inside his enclosure or not. If so, you are inevitably looking at a bad burn with the light fixture inside the tank.

TomChambers

ya...wow i never really thought about that. i guess im relying on the fact that he never comes out during the day. and if he does he just sits on top of his cork bark.
so what should i do? ive seen the fixtures that have just a grill around them. but i dont like that because the grill would get hot too and the snake could get through the grill(at least on the ones ive seen...). i cant put a hole in the top because ive got another cage on top of this one. i cant cut a hole in the side because its between a wall and another cage.

do you have a picture of your set-up might help with some ideas.

Mike,

I like to use rack type setups with strickly under-tub heat source. Is A bulb essential for your set-up? Could you impliment UTH instead ???
As misty said, maybe a photo of the entire enclosure might help spur some alternative ideas.

TomChambers

i had an idea...lemme know what you think. i could get some wire shelving (the wire with white plastic around it.) and bend into a half cube then put it up in that corner to block off that corner so he cant get to it.


wire shelving in case you didnt know what i was talking about...

Yeah I was thinking of something like that.
just as long as he can't crawl between the bars of the shelving.
Also what is the coating on the shelving??? will it melt if its too close to the heat source??

If these are not issues then it should be a good fix.

Also, you could consider cubing off the light in a screened-in corner. It looked like you built your enclosure(nicely)so you have the skills to construct a frame and screen over it.

I used aquariums when I had certain snakes as display pieces, and the light was right on the screen top for many years, and there was never an issue with burning.

TomChambers