Very Mad!

[beanersmysav]

My new ball python just came today in the mail and god is she a beauty! I'll have pictures of her soon. However I've had her cage up and ready for about a week now. All temps and humidity were perfect. I just went up to check on her since she hasn't hid the whole time so I was seeing what she was doing. For some ODD reason I had the urge to check the temp in her cage and it was 75 on the hot spot! I thinking my temp gun batteries were no good even though it said they were perfect. So I felt the heat pad and it was off. First checked to see if it was unplugged and then I switched it around in the power strip to see if it was just the one outlet since my lamps were working in the same strip. Well long story short the head pad is a dud and I can't get it back to the pet store untill 12 tomorrow afternoon. What should I do??? At night where I have her I estimate will dip to 65! I added a small shipping heat pad that I had plus the one she was shipped with. These are both at 80 degrees. It's bad enough she was just shipped over night on 3 seperate planes now she has to come and be neglected her for a night :-/ anything I can do to maintain an ok heat in the cage??? Raising room temps wont be easy to do without over heating the reptiles in my reptile room.

Sorry if this is jumbled and frantic but thats how I feel right now
:-/ So angry with myself for some reason

[dave68]

If you have a human heat pad, use it, or you could use a hot water bottle, and if you don't have one just use a 500ml or 1litre pop bottle and fill it with hot water out of the tap. You might have to get up a couple times in the night, but it beats chillin the little snake. Oh also you should wrap the bottle in a dry towel.

Dave

[beanersmysav]

Alright thanks, will do. I found my old electric blanket and put it under the tank and put it on low. I'm going to check the temps through out the night and get them perfect for now

[malaysianbloods]

If you have other reptiles and some large heating pads then you could try to share the heating pad between the two cages. Although dave68 has a good idea if you have no other heating pads available. You could also put her in a smaller rubbermaid with holes and then put the rubbermaid into a bigger one so that you can put multiple heated bottles around the smaller one. HTH

[beanersmysav]

She's on quarantine (so far only 8-9 hours) don't want to risk any of my established animals

[malaysianbloods]

Gottcha, I didn't think about that when I was posting my bad.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Yeah check the temps throughout the night, you should be ok.

And screw anything from the pets store man. Get a Sunbeam heat pad from WalMart for like $12 US. Put it on low, calibrate the temps (without the snake in the cage) and you're gravy man! :)

[beanersmysav]

All the heatpads at my local wal mart shut off after an hour to reduce the risk of fire. I tried it for my boas tank before I got em and ended up bringing them all back for that reason. I'll try the wal mart in Saratoga, it's an hour so away but it's worth the trip

[hhw]

The Sunbeams come with and without auto-shutoff. The ones without work awesome for ball pythons.

[beanersmysav]

maybe i can find one online

[marisa]

Although this won't help you, for those in Canada, Shopper's Drugmart carries the sunbeams without the auto shut off.

Marisa

[pythonmdk]

whats the biggest sumbeam you can get? was thinking of making a rack, if I can't find tape I was thinking of using a very long heat pad, are there any that are like 4 feet by a foot?

[CHRISANDBOIDS14]

Jeff, WHERE are you getting sunbeams for $12?! I cant find a stupid human heating pad below 20 bucks! Thanks.

C.

Edit: I know you said walmart, but I've been to a couple walmarts, some london drugs, and other stores.......nothing. Thanks.

[BornboreD]

Originally posted by pythonmdk
whats the biggest sumbeam you can get? was thinking of making a rack, if I can't find tape I was thinking of using a very long heat pad, are there any that are like 4 feet by a foot?

If you're gonna build a rack, heat tape and a Helix is what you want/need. Yes, it's more expensive but well worth it in the long run. The heat pad probably won't last as long, and it's bulk will make it awkward to build the rack and insulate it properly. Just my opinion......

Colin

[nita]

I got my heat pad at walmart and it doesnt' have an auto off, most do though. Read carefully.

[beanersmysav]

Good thing about Wal Mart is you can bring anything back for any reason. Atleast in the states :)

Good news is, I was able to return the head pad t othe pet store and picked up this heat cable, and a thermostat. There 27 feet of cable which I don't need so I just did reallly tight close line and it took up a good quarter of the tank. I'm really lucky he didn't catch a cold though, that human heating blanket did the trick for the night.

[bighillreptiles]

I take them apart and use the heat cable in them covered by the stuf incide them and tape them down with the meatle tape in the rack and they work great