Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As I have been reading past posts I found a breeder claiming that he has never used any kind of basking areas (i.e. heat tape, UTH, Lights). That he has only uniformaly heated his snake room. Unfortunatly I can not find that thread (if I do I will post a link).

Well this statement intriqued me. I have breed corn snakes in the past and have had them in racks using heat tape. I am curantly getting back into breeding corns. I am, however, on a fixed budget so I am starting very slow. I plan to house them in sweater and shoebox systems. Yet I don't want to put out the expense for a large rack when I curantly only have a couple of snakes. Buying UTH devices for sweater boxes is not only expensive is IMHO unsafe. So I emailed the breeder to ask what temperture he mantains his snake room at and any other advice he might have. Unfortunatly, I have not heard back from him. So I decided to post the question here.

Can corn snakes be successfully kept in a snake room that has a stable temputure (day-time 78 to 82 night 73 to 75 can be increased if needed) without the use of any othe heat source.

Thank you,
Jeff Carter

Now I am no expert, but I would say that as long as they have a shaded area they should be fine. In the wild they don't have heat lamps!! In the winter I use an added heat source, but in the summer I don't.

-Spangles
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Pets:
1.1.0 Albino Corns
1.0.0 Normal Corn
2.0.0 Green Iguanas
0.0.1 Florida King Snake
0.1.0 Rat Snake

Many individuals heat only a room and not individual portions of tanks. Quite frankly, a slightly warmer than normal "room temperature" will be adequate for most cornsnakes. If your home gets a little cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer, that would be an acceptable cycle for them. Corns are quite a bit hardier and flexible in terms of temps than most people give them credit for. As always, a gradient is a good thing and if you are keeping your snake at less than ideal temps you should be wary of any potenial problems. My corns and other ratsnakes are thriving at temps that may well shock some of the folks on these forums. Duffy

N/P

During the winter and cooler months, the temperature in my house is around 70 degrees, slightly cooler at night. I don't use air conditioning in the summer, so my temps may range from 75-85, give or take. In the winter, only my youngest snakes are getting supplemental heat with a uth. In the summer, all the uth units are unplugged. Duffy

Yes, they can. A single well insulated room could be maintained at a constant temperature. A small hide box within each enclosure will assist in thermoregulation (during digestion of food a snake coiled within a small hide box should have a body temp slightly higher than ambient). I'm not certain what the ideal constant temp should be. However, I would start at 76F-80F. I suspect that about 78F is a good choice. Or, low 80's during the day, and mid 70's at night. However, the following is recommended by Bob Applegate in his book "The General Care and Maintenance of Milk Snakes":

"If you must settle for a constant overall cage temperature, 80ºF-86ºF is recommended."

Considering that the Barkers (vpi.com) raise young ball pythons and maintain their adults at 78-83F with no supplemental heating (only gravid female ball pythons are provided with a heated area), I would suspect that a constant temp of 80F is acceptable for most (or all) colubrids. It seems reasonable that such a heated area is not required for gravid colubrids if one considers that their eggs need not be incubated at a narrow temperature range as ball python eggs require.

I would personally set the ambient temp at 80F and observe the animals closely from there.