Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have seen that some people like to heat their reptile rooms instead of heating each individual cage. I want to hear what everyone things about both of these ideas. I personally heat all my reptile with heat tape and use a thermostat on it. I have heard that some people say that heating a whole room is cheaper but it seems like that the power bill for heating a room would be more than running heat tape attached to thermostats. I was also thinking that if you heated a room to one temp then the snakes could not thermoregulate beause their entire enclosure would be the same temperature. So I just wanted to see what everyone else did and what they thought about these two methods.
Thank you

Good question. I'd like to hear everybody's opinion. I've wondered about it too.

You are exactly right. Say you heat the room to 83. The whole tank would be 83 and they would have nowhere (aside from the water dish) to cool off. Now concider that and add the fact that every individual snake prefers slightly different temperatures.
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0.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1.0 Ball Python "Wilson" (Castaway)
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
0.0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Onyx"

I heat a small room that we built at one end of the basement. Before that, I used heat pads. In theory I do agree that a heat gradient is ideal. I find that keeping an entire room at about the mid-range of that gradient is fine. Also, I have my heat source at one end, and several long cages are positioned such that one end of the cage is very near the heat. Those tanks seem to have at least a slight gradient.

I keep mostly north american ratsnakes, so there is not much variation in terms of my snakes' needs. A friend of mine keeps a variety of snakes in a heated room. It's probably a little on the warm side for his ratsnakes, but they do fine.

I think that for just a few snakes, heat pads/tape,etc would be the way to go. Once your collection starts growing, both in number and size, a room can be a good idea. Both ways seem to work if you know what you're doing. It becomes a personal choice.

Duffy

np

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Sincerely, Jason
www.NortheastSnakes.com
NortheastSnakes@aol.com

I love electric heat for each individual room, except that it gets very dry in the winter. I have a thermostat in each room. My Herp Room is high 70's right now in winter, but varies because I can raise or lower the room temp. It also depends on how high or low you are in the room. My top rack is at 80*F and the bottom shelf is in the low 70's. I turn the heat down at night. I have to use a humidifier to keep it around 35-40% this time of year in the Herp Room. I also use under cage heaters for some of the cages. The corns need more heat to digest, so their cages have a gradient.

My spare bedroom is also in the 70's, but doesn't have any extra heat. Once I start cooling snakes in there I'll turn it down. Right now I have several cages in my spare bathroom that is in the low 60's with the door closed and no heat on. Humidity is in the 50's in there. That gets them ready for the Brumation Room (a walk-in closet) which is at around 50-55*F right now, and a lot of my adult breeders are in there currently. That room is built into the side of a hill. The humidity is also above 50% in there. We also have a breezeway to the garage which stays in the low 40's, if I need that temp for anything, and the garage itself stays much cooler than the house until late November when it becomes below freezing most of the time.

I like all the different temp choices. Snakes get the heat tape when they're digesting most of the time. Other times they stand it much cooler. The Herp Room would be this temp whether I had snakes in it or not. I do all my business in here. The temp is great for me. It doesn't cost too much more to run a few heating pads. I spend a lot of time with my snakes so I give them a lot of choices. I don't especially like a lot of heat tapes because I think snakes tend to get too much heat with them. Even with thermostats I think we keep it too warm most of the time.

Good question....TC