Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I will be getting a juvenile male Dumerils in about a month and yesterday I ordered a T10 cage from Animal Plastics to house him. Ali at Animal Plastics was extremely helpful and seemed knowledgeable about the housing needs of all types of snakes, including Dums. I was surprised when she advised me to order the T10 built WITHOUT Flexwatt for belly heat. She said I should instead get a radiant heat panel. At her suggestion, I called Bob at Pro-Products and ordered their model PH3 heat panel. They are going to ship the panel to Animal Plastics & they will install it in my cage when it is built. Both Ali and Bob explained that the heat panel would be mounted in the top of one end of the cage and, controlled with a thermostat, would make a "hot" spot directly under the panel of whatever temp I wanted while keeping the ambient temp of the cage a little cooler. Bob said that even in the winter when the room temperature dropped into the 60s I would easily be able to keep the ambient temp in the 80s. Do those of you with Dumerils agree that belly heat is not needed? Does the set up I described sound OK? I can easily call Animal Plastics and have them add Flexwatt for a small additional charge.

I use both belly and overhead heating with my Dums, but they rarely use their hot spots. Both of mine seem to prefer the cool end of their cage, which is usually around 80 degrees during the day and about 75 at night. I think the RHP will work just fine though.

I'm a belly heat man myself because in my head it seems more natural. RHP work just fine though and are probably better for people that keep their animals in cool rooms. My snake room stays 74 to 80 so belly heat is perfect.
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