Question for 'Hot" Keepers

[The_Truth]

Hey folks,

I was just interested to see how many Venomous snake keepers do not use any artificial heat when that particular snake is from your local.

So to explain, I am from Victoria, and with Red Bellied Black snakes, Tiger Snakes, Copperheads I do not use any heat at all, the cages don't even have light bulb holders but they do have a low watt heat pad in one hide just in case I feel a particular night in winter might get a bit cold, but 99% of the time as they are native to the area I live I just use no heat at all and they are fine, breed etc.

How many keepers out there are heating 'local' elapid snakes? and if so why?

cheers, just a debate I was having the other night and thought I would get some more people to weigh in.

 

[longqi]

First question would be
how much time do they spend in the warm hide?

a well designed aviary outside can work ok
but snakes need external heat at times and they can use the sun in an aviary
in an unheated viv they would not have the same opportunity

 

[Echiopsis]

I'd still heat, it's a bit hard for a snake to thermoregulate in a box inside a house. In the wild the snake can choose where it lays be it in the sun, shade, in a burrow etc., it cant do this in a box. Obviously within reason, you're not going to heat a tiger when the ambient temps are over 30 degrees but in cooler weather i'd still offer a small localised heat source.

 

[junglepython2]

I heat mine as it gives them more opportunity to thermoregulate just as they would in the wild.

 

[jack]

i keep cold climate elapids almost exclusively, most have bugger all heat besides a basking lamp for daylight hours. I ditched the thermostats years ago, except for one on my diamonds winter box. My own opinion is that the pet industry has convinced keepers they need a lot more stuff than is necessary.

 

[crocodile_dan]

Animals native to your area still have access to various microclimates, just because the weather on the news gives us a set temperature doesn't mean the sun/shade/road/tree/creek/burrow/etc all conform to that uniform temperature.

 

[Riffherper]

As others have said, how will it thermoregulate inside a box. I doubt sun penetrates the box heating up a basking spot as would occur in the wild. I often see red bellies on a 40 degree day chillin on a rock in the blistering sun. I doubt this opportunity would arise in an unheated enclosure.

 

[longqi]

Hey folks,

I was just interested to see how many Venomous snake keepers do not use any artificial heat when that particular snake is from your local.

So to explain, I am from Victoria, and with Red Bellied Black snakes, Tiger Snakes, Copperheads I do not use any heat at all, the cages don't even have light bulb holders but they do have a low watt heat pad in one hide just in case I feel a particular night in winter might get a bit cold, but 99% of the time as they are native to the area I live I just use no heat at all and they are fine, breed etc.

How many keepers out there are heating 'local' elapid snakes? and if so why?

cheers, just a debate I was having the other night and thought I would get some more people to weigh in.

If they are living and breeding everything must be reasonably ok
I would guess that the room they are in is well insulated and doesnt have too many drastic swings in temperature?

 

[eipper]

The enclosure needs a thermal mosaic or gradient to allow the snake to thermoregulate. The only way to provide this mosaic is to heat part of the enclosure.

 

[jack]

what he said ^, with an additional clarification that the heat does not need to be constant if a well insulated hide is provided and feeding occurs within a natural seasonal cycle.

 

[andynic07]

The enclosure needs a thermal mosaic or gradient to allow the snake to thermoregulate. The only way to provide this mosaic is to heat part of the enclosure.

I understand about thermoregulation and why it is necessary but what I can't get my head around is if in theory you could guarantee one temperature that was the ideal for your snake throughout the whole enclosure wouldn't this be suitable environment for reptile?

 

[Rlpreston]

I understand about thermoregulation and why it is necessary but what I can't get my head around is if in theory you could guarantee one temperature that was the ideal for your snake throughout the whole enclosure wouldn't this be suitable environment for reptile?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Just because the enclosure is one temp, doesn't mean the animal is that temp. They don't heat/cool themselves to 'match' the temp of the environment, they need hotter to warm up and cooler to cool down.

They would need their body temp to fluctuate (as ours do) depending on activity etc. I believe.



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[eipper]

No simply put, at different times snakes need different temperatures, there is no magical temperature that a reptile must be at its whole life.

Gravid females, ill snakes, ova and sperm production etc all require different temps. Snakes use the environment and also behavior to regulate their PBT. Even the human body requires different temperatures in which to correctly function....if or whole body was constantly at 37 deg we could not produce sperm so hence the evolutionary adaption of a scrotum.

To prevent the reptile from an option to warm itself is setting yourself up for failure at some point.

Cheers
Scott

 

[Rlpreston]

No simply put, at different times snakes need different temperatures, there is no magically temperature that a reptile must be at its whole life.
Gravid females, ill snakes, ova and sperm production etc all require different temps. Snakes use the environment and also behavior to regulate their PBT. Even the human body requires different temperatures in which to correctly function....if or whole body was constantly at 37 deg we could not produce sperm so hence the evolutionary adaption of a scrotum.
To prevent the reptile from an option to warm itself is setting yourself up for failure at some point.

Cheers
Scott

Yes, that ^ (far more eloquent than I)



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[andynic07]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Just because the enclosure is one temp, doesn't mean the animal is that temp. They don't heat/cool themselves to 'match' the temp of the environment, they need hotter to warm up and cooler to cool down.

They would need their body temp to fluctuate (as ours do) depending on activity etc. I believe.



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The laws of thermodynamics would have an object that cannot produce its own heat or have a way to cool down becoming the temperature of the environment around it I think. A persons body temperature does not fluctuate much unless we are sick or we cannot heat/cool ourselves sufficiently by sweating or shivering in which case our body will start to shut down.

 

[andynic07]

No simply put, at different times snakes need different temperatures, there is no magically temperature that a reptile must be at its whole life.
Gravid females, ill snakes, ova and sperm production etc all require different temps. Snakes use the environment and also behavior to regulate their PBT. Even the human body requires different temperatures in which to correctly function....if or whole body was constantly at 37 deg we could not produce sperm so hence the evolutionary adaption of a scrotum.
To prevent the reptile from an option to warm itself is setting yourself up for failure at some point.

Cheers
Scott

Firstly I will make clear that I do have and always will have a temperature gradient in my enclosures and also cool all my snakes over 12 months old every winter. If a snake was not going to breed and was heathy are there other reasons like digestion that would require a higher PBT?

 

[TrueBlue]

eipper hit the nail on the head. There is not a perfect constant temp to keep your snakes at. They need to thermoregulate their boby to different temps for different reasons.

 

[Rlpreston]

The laws of thermodynamics would have an object that cannot produce its own heat or have a way to cool down becoming the temperature of the environment around it I think. A persons body temperature does not fluctuate much unless we are sick or we cannot heat/cool ourselves sufficiently by sweating or shivering in which case our body will start to shut down.

That first point is not true. Heat is transferred energy and so can't be 'absorbed' without being 'lost' by the source. There is also something to be said for the different modes of transfer, but I won't go into that.

Apart from that, reptiles are not inanimate object, just like humans.

While our core temps don't fluctuate greatly, each part of the body required different temps and body temp has great effect on functionality.


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[Rlpreston]

Firstly I will make clear that I do have and always will have a temperature gradient in my enclosures and also cool all my snakes over 12 months old every winter. If a snake was not going to breed and was heathy are there other reasons like digestion that would require a higher PBT?

Answer is yes.

Body temp affects chemical responses and metabolic rate. Temp needs to fluctuate to control these.




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[andynic07]

That first point is not true. Heat is transferred energy and so can't be 'absorbed' without being 'lost' by the source. There is also something to be said for the different modes of transfer, but I won't go into that.

Apart from that, reptiles are not inanimate object, just like humans.

While our core temps don't fluctuate greatly, each part of the body required different temps and body temp has great effect on functionality.


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Yes the source will drop if there is no further energy applied unlike the situation we would have with a thermostatically regulated heat source. I know it was a fairly simplistic look at the situation and possibly not the correct use of terminology but as far as I was aware snakes could not raise or cool their body temperature apart from moving to hotter or cooler environments.