Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys, I'm thinking about getting a blood soon. I am just wondering if you could post pics/descriptions of your blood setups, especially for adults. I just want to get some ideas on its future adult cage, mainly the dimesnsions. Interested in seeing how many people build cages or use some type of rack system.

The caging I find most successful for hatchlings are in rack setups. The hatchlings are housed in shoebox size tubs until they are around 250-300g. That is about the time they are too big in my opinion. Starting at the 250g mark, I upgrade them to the next size up which is the one shown at 9x16in. The setup is the same either way just increase the bowl and hide accordingly. The heat tape in the rack is set at around 92-95F which provides a slight thermal difference of 82F in the front and 85F in the back over the heat tape. I melt lots of holes in the sides of the box to keep a good balance of humidity and fresh air. This slows the growth of mold. At this time, I still use aspen chips, but must replace them approximately weekly or as soiled.

For adults, there is a little more flexibility. I house adults individuals (as with all non-breeding snakes) in either 3x2foot or 4x2ft cages. I use Vision brand cages, but Neodesha and others also work as long as the following basics are met:
A proportionate size hide box for security, a large water basin with fresh water and supplemental heat to provide a proper thermal gradient. I find the heat source is very important in many ways. For one, I have not had good feeding response from the snakes when I used a lighted basking spot for heat. Instead, with 11" heat tape running the length of one side of the cage to provide the same thermal as with hatchlings or the preferred source is an overhead radient heat panel. I have used ceramic emitters, but they get real hot and tend to dry the cage out too much. Too offset this, I place a larger water basin under the heat emitters and make sure the emitter is shrouded from the snake to avoid contact thermal burns.

Back to the heat tape, be very careful with using heat tape. STP's will camp out on the heat tape for days if the air temps are too cool. If your heat tape is set too high, you will get nasty thermal burns. They don't sense the pain from this or at least don't associate the pain with the source of heat.

Please keep in mind: This works for me and is not the only solution to housing the snake. Variants to this are dependent on your ambient room temps, quality of caging, health of the animal, etc. So do your homework. I have been keeping STP's since around 1996 and continue to learn each day.

Good luck.

Thanks a lot Rich. I am thinking about building a cage around those dimensions, how many inches would you suggest for cage height? I'm thinking about heating the cage with heat tape and maybe a low wattage light built inside with a screen cage around it to help keep the ambient temperatures up. I will be getting a CB red blood. At about what age do you move them from the sweater boxes to their adult tanks?

He
Here is a picture of one of my Borneo cages just completed. This is the style that I prefer for my animals, and they are easy to make if you have the patience and the time, and of course tools to put it all together. They are made from 3/4" Melamine, covered on the inside with contact brand paper to protect the surface from moisture damage as melamine is not water proof and is porous. Heat panels made by Proproducts are then installed for heating the cage. Panel not seen in the cage yet, as the panel had not arrived at the time of completion. To the left you can see a GE floresent fixture for lighting. However, the light is not kept on during the day, as these animals are nocturnal and prefer a darker cage or enclosure. The only light available to them is the day light filtering into the room from the window.

-Angel

-----
Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Thanks, that is a really nice looking cage. Is the light ever turned on? I would love to use one of those heat panels, but they are so expensive. When the time comes to build an adult cage I will probably end up buying one anyway though. What are the dimensions of that cage BTW?

Hey,
I'm in the middle of building another cage for my trio of Black bloods at the moment. The cage dimensions are as follow: 18"Hx45"Lx18"W. I use to keep the light on a timer, turning on and off, at a cycle representative of that of the coastal eastern U.S., however, I find that the need for light with this species of python is not necessary. Being nocturnal, this species can easily stress from the use of over head light, in the form of floresent and other bright over head light sources. I keep the light available for maintenance purposes and emergencies where light could be needed for viewing the animals while servicing the cage or other similar need.

-Angel
-----
Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Ah cool, thanks for clearing that up. 18" depth would be perfect for my room. Is 18" height the minimum, or can it be a little lower?

Hey,
Actually, after posting, I realized that the actual height is not 18 inches as I posted, but in fact, 16 1/2". But of course, you can make the height and width anything you like - that is purely your call. I made mine that dimmension, because of the wire rack system that I use. Hope that helps.

-Angel
-----
Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Just a little extra info Angel helped me build one of these and it really is a perfect size, I would keep the width cause of these things girth they like to kinda spread out. Mine usually stays on the hot side and occupies about a third of the cage when hes wrapped up even tho he isnt much longer than the cage itself
-----
"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior