Care sheet reliability

[jossh27]

Hey guys, anyone who's done a google search on reptile care has come across reptilemagazine. I was just wondering if its a trust worthy resource. Packed with info from morphs, husbandry and breeding techniques i find myself reading from their sites often

Most recent read ups have been on boas (bci) and Amazon tree boas. I find myself lost when believing anything i find online and every care sheets different.

[trailblazer295]

I usually read multiple sheets and take an average. I notice humidity mentioned a lot on some sheets but rarely actual percentage.

[jossh27]

I usually read multiple sheets and take an average. I notice humidity mentioned a lot on some sheets but rarely actual percentage.

Humidity i percentage is usually the most contradicting piece of information out there. I constantly second guess myself and think I'm doing something wrong because do many people say different things and i don't know what to believe. I recently picked up two boas had everything set set for weeks before picking them up and now I'm not sure if what i have is right ?!?!??!?!!?

[TRD]

'Relative Humidity' IMO is nonsense anyway without knowing the temperature at the actual humidity an animal needs.

RH changes as temperature changes, though the amount of water vapor in the air may remain the same.

F.e.

At 31 C the RH at a water vapor density of 10 gr/m3 is 31.1%
At 22 C the RH at the same water vapor density is 51.5%

...20% difference? No. There is the same amount of water in the air, but warm air can hold more water, so the 'relative' (as in relative to much much water air can hold at a certain temperature) humidity changed.

All you need to look at for the 'right values' is where your animal originates from, and see if you can pull some seasonal/monthly weather reports with data (temp, relative humidity, rainfall, etc). Then do some math to find out what your animal really wants.

Cheers.

[trailblazer295]

I keep my BCI between 55-65%. That's what the breeder Nagy reptiles recommended

[bigsnakegirl785]

I normally trust care sheets with a grain of salt myself, especially anything concerning feeding. A lot of the information is outdated or the sheets are written by people who have never owned them. I would trust the care sheet written by a breeder a little more than I would any random one, but I still wouldn't take it for gospel.

As per Vin Russo's advice, I keep my boas humidity quite high. When I was measuring with hygrometers I aimed for 70-80%, now it's however high I can keep it without condensation forming. I found when I was consciously keeping Cloud at 50-60% he would get a lot of bent scales and have lines under his eyes a lot, but shed whole just fine. Ever since I bumped his humidity I don't see that at all, unless I let the humidity fall (mostly when I'm letting his bedding dry before dampening it again). I plan on ordering a few more hygrometers, and just cycling a few different one between certain snakes.

Breeding techniques are probably going to be the absolute worst thing to try to decipher, I've never seen as much discrepancy as I've seen between breeding methods. lol As long as it works, though.

[jossh27]

I keep my BCI between 55-65%. That's what the breeder Nagy reptiles recommended

I literally just talked to Darryl Nagy on fb and he said he tries to keep them at 70%. Winter here is tough and occasionally drops to 60% for short periods

Thanks again bsg

[Andy_G]

The articles written for reptiles magazine are normally written by successful breeders and accredited people so yes it's trustworthy but always make note of of the recency of the article because things change and improve all the time even with commonly kept species...temp or humidity tweaks by a few degrees, feeding tricks, and so on. There's also more than one technique to keep some thing successfully.

Edit...what a long way to say "take em with a grain of salt." LOL

[trailblazer295]

I literally just talked to Darryl Nagy on fb and he said he tries to keep them at 70%. Winter here is tough and occasionally drops to 60% for short periods

Thanks again bsg

Yeah winter here is tough. I'm struggling to keep the humidity up as it is. My house is 35-40%. I'm thinking of getting a portable humidifer to put in the basement to help keep humidity higher down there.

Hmm odd Darryl was who I asked before. I met him to pick up my boa.

[pet_snake_78]

I really don't pay much attention to humidity. Anything in a rack has always done fine by me, if anything I'll get too much humidity and have to put in more holes. In enclosures, yea they have a tendency to get dried out by the rhp and surrounding air in winter. I mist then by hand but if I had a lot of species that needed humidity and cages, I'd probably look into automating my misting. I have one display cage that tends to run a little dry, it's the only one I use a lamp with, I am going to put in a small waterfall to help. As far as care sheets, I look for people who have kept and bred a species for a long time when such a person exists.

[akane]

It seems mostly accurate but I never take one source of information whether online, offline, group written article, or talking to one individual. Even if something works great for someone and they have a ton of experience it may not work for you for some reason that can't be determined. You kind of have to tweak your own method with all animals to perfectly match your setup, husbandry, and even breeding line of the animal. Different sources for an animal may have minor differences in response to things just from breeding the ones that do best in that particular setup and feeding style or from natural selection in different locals. We see it a lot more in rabbits where it's often said don't bother hunting for feed your rabbits do good on. Find feed you can get in high quality easily and you'll end up breeding the rabbits to match the feed brand. Of course that's if your breeding and a faster generation turn around so with something you keep over a longer lifespan and aren't making your own breeding group you do need to find what works best for you and the individual or the group from the same source.

I mostly threw humidity out the window when I started asking about bio-active for my rosy boa. I mist and make sure to top off water bowls if I notice a shed and otherwise with bio-active I just watch the substrate and the cleaner crew for how much moisture to add. Some areas I water more than others since my tanks are not uniform from end to end. I throw in a heavy rainstorm day here and there depending on how arid or humid the natural environment would normally be and my chosen soil mix for that tank.