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Originally Posted by akane
My limited experience with lizards there is definitely no magic number to keep them all. I have crested geckos that would live in the upper levels of the cloud forest of new caledonia and are often kept unheated at room temp with breeding down to 68F and overheat easily so they are not kept over 80F with very rarely a basking spot. If used, relying on supplemented commercial diets has become more common, UV is often fluorescent lighting based instead of producing much heat. Having looked at native lizard species and biggest concentration seeming to be the hotter areas of the continent there are some truly diurnal desert dwellers that have a cool end in the 80s-90s during the day and basking spots over 100F. Many desert lizard species will be visible when snakes have sought shelter. The range is quite huge with lizards.
My captive keeping experience may have only reached it's first year but I wouldn't say all snakes only thermoregulate out of necessity. I see snake care rolled together like they are one species and often based on tropical or exotic species that are too busy avoiding heat or seeing little variation between day and night and I can understand some of the single temp rooms for large pythons and boas that I have seen people setup. They have limited basking and are probably quite content if they can maintain one ideal temp. Snakes are not one species though and I don't think just matching a temp and humidity ideal between species is enough difference in care for their difference in behavior and natural environment. For my North American natives I've had some that I switched from having a basking bulb to consistent heat with a fluorescent for lighting and despite being the same temperature all the time now they still go looking for the light when it comes on to find no increase in temp and return to hiding instead of laying out in the open like they used to. I have a corn that loves a lizard UV basking bulb and seeks it out beyond temps she will seek out from a CHE gradient. I tested the 2nd corn I now have and he also will seek out a basking bulb that is not UV but ignore the 24/7 che when the basking bulb goes off and simply go into shelter to wait for the next day instead.
It seems instinctual by some snakes to bask to the point I might consider it enrichment behavior and it certainly makes them more enjoyable to watch. Really all behaviors developed out of environmental need to survive but to not fulfill those behaviors has been seen more easily in mammals to cause various unhealthy changes in behavior despite removing the need for them. Maybe we can't compare the 2 but we have little research to prove either way so I'll go by what I see. I find my bulls are actually calmer and put on less of their defensive show when they get to go bask on a rock platform or area of warmed open dirt between decor. Contrary to the wild warm snakes being more aggressive than cold but these snakes are comfortable with me around and remain basking without caring what I'm doing compared to when they are actively moving about the cool end of the enclosure or getting protective inside a cool hide. When they aren't lazily basking you are far more likely to get bluffing strikes out of them.
On the other end, which shows species difference, my desert king responds to cooling events. Instead of giving him basking spots he comes out on "rain days" I mimic for the bioactive critters to stay alive or if I run 2 lights so one goes out and cools partially in the evening. His activity is limited to drinking, checking for rodents, and going back to shelter if kept at any one temp even on the low end of the suggested range for their health with no attempt to bask when temps are low but he becomes extremely active for hours even with lights still on if he has a hot and cool period. It is far more interesting to watch him explore all over the entire evening when he is kept warm during the day with a temp drop shortly before lights out than to try to keep him at one temp where he hides, drinks, checks for rodents, hides, and stops to eat quickly on feeding day. In his previous tank I actually didn't see him for a week at a time because he'd use burrowing instead of hides and I provided no "rain days" because it had no bioactive cleanup crew or temp changes so he probably grabbed some water nocturnally and occasionally you'd see his black head meant to blend in sticking out to check things from his burrow. The rodent disappeared off the feeding rock and sheds would appear about the time I'd start threatening to dig him out and I was keeping him cooler than I keep his daytime now. There was just no change between day and night and no other cooling events so instinctually he never came out into the heat during lights on or for long periods even if it wasn't as hot.
I love watching the behaviors they display when you mimic parts of the environment you can and I see no increased stress from doing so or decreased stress just keeping them at what is considered to be the ideal for them across the enclosure 24/7. I am talking about specific species though. I learned I wouldn't do it with a blood python. I'd rather have a fully controlled specific room that does not have a gradient, basking, or cooling because they do not seem to respond with anywhere near the same strength to any of those things except to become reactive at higher temps. They don't seek changing conditions with the same vigor and seem quite content to sit, waiting for something like prey, at a set temp and humidity all the time. It is such different behavior and responses between species evolved in such different environments that I would no longer apply the same type of husbandry because, ignoring enjoyment of behavior displays, it did not even result in equally healthy snakes.
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Very interesting information.
I think that when it comes to lizards there are just so many more physiological differences between the various species that it would make sense that a method like this would not work. I think that the difference between any random 5 snake species, for example ball python, a bull snake, a garter snake, a rosy boa and a king snake are much more similar to each other than say a leopard gecko, a bearded dragon, an iguana, a blue tongue skink and a fence lizard if that makes sense.
I've recently moved one of my snakes into a large bioactive enclosure with several inches of substrate (you can see it in the colubrid forum). It only happened 2 days ago and I haven't seen her much although she seems to be switching between the crevices under the background, burrowing and the hide that is behind the wood at the top. I recently discovered after changing the water bowl today that she burrowed up under it a bit which is kind of neat as I was unsure of how she would utilize the extra burrowing room. The terra firma substrate I'm using claims to hold burrows very well so it was nice to see this in action.
Like I said in the first post, I've only adapted it sort of in a middling way. No hot spot, tighter gradient, less emphasis on humidity. If someone goes full bore into it they have to understand the whole concept in it's entirety and have a great measure of control which in individual cages in a house that changes temperature relatively easily from night to day isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world to accomplish.
Before I had the deep substrate and natural setup I had more control via relatively easy, wide spread heat pads set to around 83 just to have enough "umph" to get up through the substrate. The overall degree swing in the terrarium was always within 3-4 degrees from 78-81F ish. If my house gets a little cooler at night then it'll obviously be a little cooler and if the house bumps up to 83 in the summer then they just have to deal with that along with me because unless we're approaching 86+ plus mark in the house I'm not turning on the air conditioner, it's only done that a few times like once when someone burned food and windows had to be opened in the middle of the day, stuff like that. With the lower temp method (this is more important for tropical snakes) you can't really have the obnoxious high humidity that some keepers use, those have to be lower as well or else problems could arise. And really that's my only concern as I have to keep the bugs and plant relatively hydrated.
My female is quite bold and would lay out in the open more and more as feeding day approached (main reason she got the sweet home), my male would hide away occasionally peaking his head out to see what's going on, it being a special occasion for him to venture out and show off his good looks. The snakes I've kept with hot spots, whether on natural substrate (never the bioactive super thick stuff) paper, plain, decorated, whatever. I honestly didn't see them often and I had WAY more time to watch them back then than I do now. With these snakes I've actually noticed personalities, I've noticed how, in particular my female is incredibly aware of what's going on out side the glass, always having an eye on me hoping for food, watching me fold laundry, whatever.
I've had to adapt with this new bioactive thing, setting up a CHE with a very wide dome that I hope will help spread the heat out a bit over a larger surface area similar to my idea of the large surface area heat pad. The cage is massive compared to her previous digs, her and Ricky were stuck in 10 gallons (I know, I know I didn't like it either but it took me longer to gather everything and finish it as mid project I had a layoff so progress was behind schedule). There are WAY more places to hide in this large enclosure than there was in the old cage, essentially the entire substrate is a hide now lol. I am curious to see if she takes advantage of the heat from above when it cools down and it's on more.
She's only been in there a few days and like all snakes she's going through an acclimation period so I'm not making any rash judgments that she's gonna stop coming out to show off for good. The way I kept my temperatures in the past didn't seem to bother her at all. And because the two snakes are the same same species, were previously being kept in the exact same way I'm chalking Ricky's cautious behavior up to personality difference.
She's a savage feeder, I don't think I'm gonna need any sort of feeding rock. I think when she smells that first mouse in a few days that she'll come flying out of wherever she happens to be hiding to see what's going on. I hope... lol.
I'm gonna monitor her behavior over the coming weeks and report back on it in the colubrid section either way.
I appreciate you sharing your experiences here it's quite interesting the differences you saw with your snakes in regards to hot spots. If you have any advice for the bioactive setup in general I'd appreciate any you have down in my thread about my setup. I've been reading and studying about it for years but as we all know, knowing how something should be and making it that way can be two entirely different things.
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