Steady temperatures or not?
Last night i had an interesting conversation with a fellow hobbyist, he has all his animals on thermostats and only slowly changes the settings and times twice a year. As a lot of hobbyists do, he keeps the temperatures stable and perfect. Please don't think i am calling that a bad thing, i just wanted to try something slightly different. He seemed interested in my 'method' and is going to try it himself, thought i'd share and ask what you guys think.
I already create the day-time hot-spot where the ambient temperature at night is at it's minimum, so the if the animal wants to warm up at night they will have to move. Like they would have to do if they lived outside, the hottest spot during the day is usually where it cools the hardest during the night as far as i know.
And since they get most of their light from natural daylight already, it seems to make sense to not only let the light lvls vary but also the temperature. My thermostat can balance the temp perfectly off course, however i let the temperature vary more based on the weather. I made sure they cant get too low or too high, just enough change so the animal notices. The hot-spot remains the same, and i have the privilege of being able to check and change the temperatures wherever i am.
Since the temperatures change slightly daily, they have become noticeably more active. But not as you initially might expect, they do not immediately crawl nearer to their hot-spot when the ambient temperature drops a bit, or rush to the cooler end when it raises. On bad days they lie in wait more and only if the bad weather remains for a extended period they move to somewhere warmer, on sunny days however they are more likely to go actively moving around/foraging during the day as well as during the night. Whilst when the temperature remained steady, most(not all) of the foraging took place at night. The just seem to be less 'lazy' when the temperature isn't always perfect in every way.
Wonder if anyone else has ever tried this? Or is it something you would try?
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