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Caught The Snake Bug

P

PumaKrieg

New member
Hey everyone,

After catching snakes in the backyard and letting them go over the years I decided to start looking into keeping a snake myself. I considered a ball python but am now leaning heavily towards a corn snake due to lenient humidity requirements and I was told that ball pythons sometimes have odd feeding behaviors where they don't eat for long periods of time on end. I live in Central Florida and the entire house never gets under 78 degrees farenheit and the room I was intending to keep the snake in is probably even warmer because of four other aquariums already running in there at the moment (55 gallon marine, 30 gallon marine, 75 gallon bearded dragon, 30 gallon leopard gecko). I already have a 30 gallon aquarium with two hides; one on one side and one on the other with a water dish in the middle. I intend on using aspen as the substrate. The one thing I am a little unsure about is heating. On the forum reptileforums.com I was widely told to use underheating however all the local floridians (and very experienced ones at that) tell me that I could use overhead lighting for heat or that I don't need any heating device at all (albeit i would probably still run one at the winter when i might be gone).

Anyhow thank you for your time and I will be looking forward to your replies.
 
Heh I need to get everything settled and answered about getting this first snake. Will probably buy one at the Daytona expo if I can make it.
 
Welcome to the forum, PumaKrieg.
You should definitely make it to Daytona, living in Florida and all. I can't go but wish I could.
There will be many many fine people there to meet, many VIP's in the cornsnake-keeping world.
 
Yes i've gone to it the past 3 years and actually got my leopard gecko there last year. It's definently the best/biggest expo i've been to. Anyone have any advice on my heating problem or should i be posting that somewhere else?
 
I was wondering why your heating issue wasn't being answered... LOL
We have quite a few members on here from Florida, so one of them will have the definitive answer for you I'm sure....
UTH are favoured on here, used in conjunction with a thermostat....
ps..... Ever seen a rocket take off????
 
Yes quite a few actually. It's cool but I probably take it for granted being so close and seeing it as many times as I have.
 
Also want to say i enjoy field herping; i generally go out twice a week or more during the summer and do some flipping. The only snakes i've found when purposely looking for them this summer have been some rather large racers however I recently caught a pine woods snake in my backyard when i wasn't searching. Seems I have better luck when i'm not looking for them. :)
 
PumaKrieg said:
Yes quite a few actually. It's cool but I probably take it for granted being so close and seeing it as many times as I have.
Click to expand...
Excellent, :dancer:post up some pics on my thread.......:dancer:

PumaKrieg said:
Also want to say i enjoy field herping; i generally go out twice a week or more during the summer and do some flipping. The only snakes i've found when purposely looking for them this summer have been some rather large racers however I recently caught a pine woods snake in my backyard when i wasn't searching. Seems I have better luck when i'm not looking for them. :)
Click to expand...
Are you tempted to hold back any you find??
 
snakewispera snr said:
I was wondering why your heating issue wasn't being answered... LOL
Click to expand...
Silly Mike. I would have been glad to answer it. But then someone who'd been here 5+ years would have had to come along, smack me down, and restate/rephrase my answer. ;)

Incidentally, I have UTH's under some viv's, as well as on the end/side of some of my vivs. Depends on how I've got them arranged, and determined by not wanting to get any one (of my snakes) too hot. Just my own personal preference that works for me.
 
I live in Florida and keep my snakes in generic racks/tubs with no extra heat. Ambient house temps seem to be fine for them. Of course, the room I have them in is probably a bit warmer than the rest of the house - averaging around 78 degrees most of the year.
 
Yes Angel my house is exactly the same with the room the snake in should already be more. So you have no problems with that setup? Cflguy told me i didn't need any extra heat and I know he is very experienced but as a rule I try not to listen to the advice of one person no matter how informed he or she may be.
 
snakewispera snr said:
Excellent, :dancer:post up some pics on my thread.......:dancer:


Are you tempted to hold back any you find??
Click to expand...


Yes I am tempted to hold back many I find but i normally just keep them overnight and let them go the next day. If i found something like a hatchling corn and it seemed healthy, I might take it in but I don't know for sure as I never have. Not to mention a captive bred one is fairly cheap so i really don't know. If it was a cool looking corn it would be tough. :blowhead:
 
PumaKrieg said:
Yes Angel my house is exactly the same with the room the snake in should already be more. So you have no problems with that setup? Cflguy told me i didn't need any extra heat and I know he is very experienced but as a rule I try not to listen to the advice of one person no matter how informed he or she may be.
Click to expand...

We have never had any problems and we have over 150 snakes in house currently. Sometimes in the winter if my snake room gets a little cool, I might set up a heat lamp or two, but they aren't pointed directly at the racks or tubs. Just to bring up the ambient temp of the room a little bit.
 
I live in Tallahassee and have my snakes in a rack. I turned off the heat during the summer, but I definitely turn the heat back on in the winter as up here, we get some nights as low as 18 degrees (last winter we had weeks that had average night temps around 30 degrees).
 
Did you know that we are mostly all staying at the same hotel at Daytona, and there will be a huge cornsnake dinner there Saturday night, and we like to meet up at the show and loosely stay together as we go through it??? See the threads in General Chit Chat. We'll meet up on the steps at the Expo well before they open in the morning. The Florida people all know each other, plus we have many special friends from all over the US joining us this year!!!
 
Yes, Nancy Love told me and while it is tempting I don't think i can afford to stay in a hotel overnight while splurging on my reptiles at the same time. You never know though.

:)
 
PumaKrieg said:
Yes, Nancy Love told me and while it is tempting I don't think i can afford to stay in a hotel overnight while splurging on my reptiles at the same time. You never know though.

:)
Click to expand...

Even if you can't stay over night - we are having a dinner at the hotel on Saturday night to be followed by a bunch of raffles. We are raising money for USARK. Raffle tickets will only be $1 each and we have prizes donated from Kathy Love, Jeff Mohr, Bayou Reptiles, Mice Direct and many more. It will be a lot of fun and raising money for a good cause.

In regards to your BP - I am not certain. My roommate used to have some and he kept heat on them all the time with UTH's.
 
Hey ya PK......

PumaKrieg said:
Yes Angel my house is exactly the same with the room the snake in should already be more. So you have no problems with that setup? Cflguy told me i didn't need any extra heat and I know he is very experienced but as a rule I try not to listen to the advice of one person no matter how informed he or she may be.
Click to expand...

ArpeggioAngel said:
I live in Florida and keep my snakes in generic racks/tubs with no extra heat. Ambient house temps seem to be fine for them. Of course, the room I have them in is probably a bit warmer than the rest of the house - averaging around 78 degrees most of the year.
Click to expand...

ratsncorns said:
I live in Tallahassee and have my snakes in a rack. I turned off the heat during the summer, but I definitely turn the heat back on in the winter as up here, we get some nights as low as 18 degrees (last winter we had weeks that had average night temps around 30 degrees).
Click to expand...

Glad ya made it over here. Welcome aboard. Hope ya make it to the dinner after the show.

I don't remember what I said exactly but I believe it was I don't use any heat. Do some research and make your own conclusions. Glad to see you're doing that. And as you see here, there are different people doing different things. Katie uses no extra heat like myself, and RC uses heat in the Winter.

Hope you enjoy youe time here.:laugh:
 
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