Looking for info on Photoelectric cells?

[Stockwell]

Trev,my lights are on when I'm in the room, and that is often in the middle of the night. There are no windows either, so my room is dark most of the time.
With rack systems the ambient room light is pretty insignificant anyway as it doesn't get into the trays much , as closely stacked trays shade one another,and there is generally wood on 3 sides, so any light from the room is rather subtle to say the least.
Some of my racks are still Jumbo Kitty litter pans
that are solid grey plastic.
With only an inch between trays, no light is getting into them anyways, whether the room light is on or off, they are pretty close to dark all the time.

With my racks, every square inch of them is the exact same temperature because like I said, other than pans that contain gravid female Boids, they have no supplemental heating whatsoever.... Sure the snake can move around, but they aren't really doing much thermoregulating, because the cage is the same temp as the room.
There is none of this hot side, cold side stuff.
Heating the entire room, is the way I have always done it. It's the way most herpers with large collections use to do it, because it's more efficient to control the entire room, and heat tape for local heating, hasn't been around for that long.
And I don't agree that it's non conventional.
I think its all the new hyper sensitive herpers
that fuss way too much that are non-conventional.
Of course I appreciate all the finiky fussing is all done with good intentions, but I feel sometimes the effort is unnesessary.

I can pretty much guarantee you that if you have healthy mature ball pythons,and you temperature condition them properly while providing adequate humidity and food intake, you'll end up with fertile eggs, whether you
have them under Power twist vitalights, or in total darkness.

[BoidKeeper]

I think its all the new hyper sensitive herpers

Well I certainly fit into that group.
All very interesting stuff to read Roy. A lot of it goes agaisnt what I've always been told but you can't argue with results. If you weren't so sucessful I would disregard what you're saying as crazy talk but you can't argue with success.
Here is how I do it. Tell me what you think.
Each cage has a basking spot whether it be a ball, boa, corn or Leo. Each set to that species required temp.
The cool side is the same as the temp in my room. During the day I heat the room to 85 summer 80 winter. At night it's 80 summer and 75 winter. So in the case of the balls, when the sun goes down the timer turns of their hot spots and I turn the thermostate down to 75. In the morning I turn the heat back up when the sun starts to come up. The timer turns on the heat pads.
So is this over kill?
Thanks,
Trevor

[Stockwell]

Yup! I'd say it's overkill
All the species you keep are fine with the same temp.. If you heat the entire room, that's all you need. I suggest a daytime high of 82-85 days for the winter, with a drop to 68 to 72 at night.
That will ensure your Regius & boas will be getting cool enough to encourage fertile copulations... Leos don't care... I sometimes stick mine in the living room with no heat or light or food for at least a month...
Your corns should be hibernating at 55F right about now. Sure you don't absolutely have to shut them down but Think of the food you'll save

I generally stick as much in brumation as possible, unless I'm trying to put extra size on some neonates, in which case they go into the incubator all winter and chow down.
All my adult colubrids get brumated, including Hondrans, ratsnakes, rosy boas, rubbers, skinks...
All tropical boids, Haitians, brazilians, Solomons, Regius, Sand boas...are/were kept in the same room under the indentical conditions as I described above.
I don't feed the adulst sand boas very much if at all between Jan and March. They don't have much of an appetite with dips to 68 in the evenings...

Trevor, what you're doing isn't wrong, it's just more than is necessary.
However don't make the mistake of offering snakes warm spots when you're trying to condition them for breeding. They won't subject themselves to low temps if they have the choice , but then they probably wont reproduce either.

Some of the first captive reproductions of many Boids happened first in zoos, as the result of unintentional winter power failures...

[Scales Zoo]

This is a great discussion, excellent post guys!

Ryan

[Stockwell]

Glad you enjoyed it Ryan, but it's done! If I have to give away anymore of my old fashioned unconventional, opinionated, secrets, my price is going up!

[BoidKeeper]

lol
Thanks Roy! Just one note of clarification if you would.
"However don't make the mistake of offering snakes warm spots when you're trying to condition them for breeding."
Do you mean don't offer them warm spots at all during the cooling period? Three months with out a basking spot at all?
Thanks again,
Trevor

[Stockwell]

Heat kills sperm! There is no sense cooling them low then having them sunning there buns on a hot rock...
85F daytime ambient is plenty hot enough to keep the female feeding and that is all you're looking for during the breeding season
Once she ovulates and becomes gravid (March to May) then you'll want to have a 90F spot for her

[BoidKeeper]

Thanks Roy.
I was modeling my room after the Sutherlands set up. I bought Dr. Sewards Ball Breeding video with the Sutherlands and that's where I got all my temp info and natural day light cycles.

They do it like this;
Summer ambiant DTH 85 NTL 80
Summer basking spot DTH 95 NTL 85
Winter ambiant DTH 80 NTL 75
Winter Basking DTH 95 NTL 85
There basking spots are controlled by their photo cell. They have it hooked into their Helix. When the sun comes up there hot spots heat up to 95. When the sun goes down the photo cell tells the helix to lower the hot spot to 85.
As the year goes on the amount of time the snakes have to bask at 95 changes with the number of day light hours. The ambiant also changes by 5 degress as well.
And you thought my method was over kill.
When do you recomend people start cooling their Regius?
Cheers,
Trevor

[Scales Zoo]

I've talked to a few breeders that don't give their boas or pythons any "hot spot", when they are gravid - and just aim for a good higher ambient. Some create a heat gradient with heating the side of the enclosure.

The thinking is, that a snake could overheat a certain area of their body with contact heat, even one that only registers at 90 F. If you were incubating python eggs, you wouldn't want them to go over 90 - so even with boas, you wouldn't want the temperature of the developing babies to be able to get higher.

What it all boils down to in the end, do what works for you - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Different methods can work for different people.

Here is one for anyone. Has anyone ever heard of any study's (private or published) regarding developing eggs producing heat because of protein changes when the baby snakes are forming?

Ryan