Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone. It's me again. I have a yearling ball and she's about two feet. I feed her one mouse a week and i recently read that feeding rats helps the animal healthwise and grow faster. I now have decided i'm going to switch to thawed rat pups. I was just wondering the exact way to present the prey and thawing them. Can anyone help me with this? Also, i am currently using aquariums to house my collection and the lengths i'm having to go to maintain humidity have officially become to strenuous and time consuming. I'm thinking of switching to rubbermaid cages but was wondering how to set it up; you know whether to punch holes in the top of the lid or what? I was just wondering if anyone used rubbermaid and if they did provide a few pics so i can get an idea of how to heat and setup the rubbermaids. Thanks for your time and help.

Trey

I know I've gone over this at least 4 times in this forum, but I'll say it again:

Leave rat in hot water for usually about 30 min . Dangle it in front of the snake with a pair of tongs - not directly above it or near its face, since that'll intimidate it. Or try leaving the snake in its feed box with the (dead!) rodent overnight in a nice quiet, dark place.

Rubbermaids work just peachy. I don't have any in them yet, but I will has two in such a setup as of this weekend. Just drill some holes in the sides, or heat up a metal coat hanger and poke holes that way. Put a heat pad under it (I always use 3 setting human heat pads). Obviously, you can't use a lamp.

OR if you're having a problem with humdity, you can do what I do. Get a Serlite or Tupperware bowl with a lid, cut out a hole in the side, and put some Sphagnum moss (found in most petstores) in it and keep it nice as moist. Humidity usually stays nice and high (60-80, depending on how often you remoisten it), and I haven't had a bad shed since I started using "humidity boxes."
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-Irish
My Snakes

Sorry for making you repeat yourself but hey...that's part of being in a forum. Thanks for your help!

I have a big rubbermaid I have used for my bp, and you can use heat lamps with it. I just cut a hole in the top, and taped screening to it, and set the heat lamp on the screening. Works great, and you dont have to do any other holes for ventilation, cause this creates enough.