Posted by:
rebelluver
at Fri Oct 28 16:17:13 2016 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by rebelluver ]
I wish I knew how attainable the melamine or pvc cages are now. When I owned snakes in the past they were far more expensive. Doing a quick google search this time before I got my setup, I still only saw $400 and up. Now, I see boaphile has a good sized cage for $200. My wife still would not have let me but I could have made a melamine cage for under $100.
That will definitely be her next cage setup when she gets older. My goal is to have her in a 4ft cage by the time she is 3ft. As for what I have done now, I used packing tape to seal off most of the screen. I left open a spot for the CME and a smaller one on the other side for ventilation. You do 2 layers of tape. One facing up from the bottom, and one facing down from the top. Using this technique I was able to get rid of the fogger and use the money to buy a thermostat for the CME and an infrared thermometer. I already had one for the UTH.
Using this setup I am able to retain 60% humidity pretty easily. I have the warm side set to between 82-84 with a spot for belly warmth in her hide at 86. The cool side is 78 but she always buries herself in the substrate which is about 75. These temps are easy to maintain in the dessert here in Las Vegas.
So in the end i think I have given her a happy, healthy home until she gets a proper boa tank. Still, tons of people are going to go to a neighborhood pet store chain and get bad advice so this technique should be helpful to those people.
Almost forgot the most important part. I think the biggest reason I was having bad temperature readings was using an analog thermometer and hygrometer. Once I got a digital one that read both, I could see that my temps weren't as bad as I thought. In fact, it tells me I was over heating my previous snakes cages because those analog ones are awful. They just aren't accurate enough. Once I replaced it with the digital one my temperatures read 81 on the warm side and not 78. It was pretty far off on everything.
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