Reptilian fascination

These snakes are a joy to keep. They are attractive, undemanding, breed readily, and feed eagerly. To the best of my knowledge, there are no new wild caught stock coming in, so these are a great breeding project to keep this species available for future hobbyist. I'll go into the details of how I keep them, but bare in mind there are probably many methods for successfully keeping and breeding this species. As far as housing goes, I keep it fairly simple. They always have access to a moist hide box on the cool end and a dry hide box, too. I keep them in well ventilated tubs in the mid to upper 70s. Heat tape is used to create a small basking spot in the low 80s. I will turn the basking spot off if the room hits 80, but it rarely does as I set an air conditioner to the upper 70s during the summer months. Aspen seems to work as a substrate and I am sure paper would work fine, too. The moist hide box I feel is important to ensure proper shedding and because these snakes will genera...

As we get later into spring and temperatures rise, it is time to begin thinking about how to cool down your reptile rooms. If you have centralized air conditioning (especially if it allows for multiple zones) and/or a small number of devices that generate heat, your rooms may stay cool enough as it is. If not, then you may need to add an additional cooling device.What I've done is purchase inexpensive window air conditioners which work very well and keep the air circulating. I connect these to a prewired Ranco etc thermostat which has proven to be a great and reliable thermostat for both heating and cooling devices. Try to situate your reptile room so that the cold airflow is not blowing directly onto sensitive species. I try to situate the room so those that need cooler conditions are closer to the AC but I don't like it blowing directly on any of my animals and have the airflow pointed away from the racks and cages.