Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Iwas wonderin if your snakes are cooling but still eating,,,can it kill them if their stayin on the cold end all the time with food in them???????reason being my female was kinda dormant today ..like she was sleeping,,and it took awhile for her to perk up..i actualy thought she was dead for a moment.

Usually cooling does not entail leaving the heat off permanantly. Actually a lot of breeders will simply have a night drop in the hotspot, which will remain the regular temperature during the day. As long as there is some adequate heat at some part of the day the ball python should be able to digest just fine.

but do they ever act like their dormant or asleep,,during cooling??that shook me up a bit i actualy thought she was dead..

my room dropped because of heating problems and I noticed more activity and appetite response in my males. I had temps as low as mid 60s and the hot spots remained the same. The males still seemed to thermoregulate to the heat pads and had great appetite and there was almost no difference in female behavior I saw (of any species...not just bps). I am not an expert and just giving my experience over the last few weeks in the IL cold.