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Husbandry and Basic Care General stuff about keeping and maintaining cornsnakes in captivity.

Adjusting a snake to different temperatures?
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Old 04-07-2018, 02:07 AM   #1
airlia101
Adjusting a snake to different temperatures?

I just joined today, as a long-term babysitter for my friend's ~1 year old snake. We've set up the snake and her viv at my place, and now I'm thinking about all the snakey details... for today, viv temps.

In the previous home, air temperature was around 65 degrees F; my apartment hovers around 70-75 F. Under the eye of my friend, I set the under-tank heater to "the mark" where it had been previously kept.
Today I dug out an IR thermometer. The "warm" side of the viv, the top of substrate, only measured 74 F. From what I've read on here, that sounds much too cool; yet, this snake and two others have been living at that temperature for several years, and my friend has raised other snakes before, where I've had this one for all of two weeks now. When she fed last week, she curled up above the warm side; this week, though, she spent the days after feeding on the un-heated side. I can't tell if something's off, or if she just doesn't notice the difference?

I'm going to bring it up with my friend, but also am open to advice. I feel raising the temperature too much, or too fast, is likely to just stress the snake. It's also winter here, so cooler in general. Maybe a gradual couple-degrees-each-week regimen?
 
Old 04-07-2018, 09:38 AM   #2
Karl_Mcknight
don't measure the temp on the top of the substrate, measure it on the bottom of the tank. The snake may burrow down into the substrate to get to the level of warmth it wants or needs. It may only be 74 on top of the substrate like you said, but it could be 85 or 90 on the actual bottom of the tank. Also, it's better to measure the temp inside of the hiding box (or the place where the snake likes to hide) on the warm side. The hiding box should be directly over the heat pad. I keep mine adjusted on the warm side so that the temp inside the hiding box stays around 85. It may creep down 2 or 3 degrees on cold days or creep up 2 or 3 degrees on warm days. That's ok. The temp on the cool side is room temp which stays between 71 and 74 in my house. There should also be a hide box on the cool side.
 
Old 04-07-2018, 11:33 AM   #3
Twolunger
A lot depends upon how thick the substrate layer is in the viv. If you are talking about a one inch layer the temp is too cool at 74. If you are talking about 3 inches, you need to check it as Karl suggested, on the bottom of the substrate against the glass. If the temps are in the low 80's at the glass it's a simple matter to restrict the amount of substrate under the hot side hide. It's a funny thing regarding temperatures. I have a friend who uses no heat other than the ambient room temperature, a constant 78. He has kept corns for at least 25 years with no problems. I have another friend who tried using only ambient room temps between 76-78 and his corns started having regurgitation issues. He began using heat pads and things returned to normal. I guess the moral of the story is that heat only becomes a problem when the corns start having problems.
 
Old 04-07-2018, 11:54 AM   #4
Karl_Mcknight
you can have an ambient room temp of 78 degrees, perhaps even the thermometer on your AC thermostat will state that, but that doesn't necessarily mean the temp in a snake's cage will be. Placement of the cage effects the temps regardless of the temps in your house. An outside wall can be warmer or cooler, next to a window can be warmer or cooler. If you want a more accurate reading of your "room temp" use a infrared thermometer and take a reading directly in the middle of the water bowl. (Water will take on the temp around it). I have done this numerous times when my AC thermostat said the ambient house temp to be 74, yet the water bowl measured 68. How is that? Because my snake's cage is along an outside wall which gets cooler in the winter than the rest of the house.

As somebody who has worked professionally in the Heating and Cooling business for 40 years, I have wrestled with this dilemma in the past with my other snakes. Making sure temps and humidity are right are not as simple as hooking up a heat pad, installing a cheap thermometer and walking away. The temps even with a good thermostat will still fluctuate up and down inside the cage, especially if placed near a window or outside wall. The optimum placement should be an internal wall, but sometimes that's not possible for all of us.

It's my opinion that "consistency" is best when keeping pet reptiles. The cool side and warm sides should remain the same (or close to the same, day and night and year round). It's the constant fluctuations up and down that confuse the snake, mess with its metabolism, and cause health issues.

I now use 2 heat pads, one on the cool side and 1 on the warm I have invested in a nice thermostat, and moved the cage away from windows. I have a constant warm temp of 85 and cool temp of 74 (both of those are plus or minus about 2 degrees due to warmer and cooler days. There's nothing you can do about that).

I also no longer use Aspen. I use Reptile carpet which eliminates temp variations in the substrate. Of course it eliminates burrowing too. But "A Corn Snake needs to Burrow" is just a myth. As long as they have plenty of places to hide, the substrate doesn't make a hill of beans difference to a snake. I've use newspaper and paper towels before too, and the snakes did fine.
 
Old 04-09-2018, 01:49 AM   #5
airlia101
@Karl_Mcknight, thanks for clarifying about above vs below substrate temps, that wasn't something I picked up from other discussions. I've now got an I/O thermometer, and have the probe under the hot side -- reading 83 after turning up a notch, which seems like a fine place to be. I also swapped the hides from side to side. She snaked over to the hot side yesterday, and curled up along the outline of the heating pad, under the substrate as usual.

I took her out to play/explore, and she went right for the dark corners behind books on the shelf -- not one to stick around and soak up human body heat. But today, I found her in the hot hide, with a head and neck peeking out almost all day. Even leaned in to flick a tongue at my hand.
Obviously I'm just projecting, but in my head she's discovering that she likes warmth, and just couldn't detect enough difference on this side before.

@Twolunger, your friends are exactly the two ways I'd worried this could go... she's lived at cooler temps for a while, but *what if* something changed slightly while moving, or if this last meal was a bit too big to digest cool, or if she's stressed, or... Looks now like all is good, anyway. As you say, it's only a problem if the snake is having problems.

I think I'll keep things like this for the next few weeks, and maybe swap the hides once in there -- to see if she likes one strongly enough to follow it to the other temperature. If it's the hide, I'll lower the temp back down to how it was before... if she sticks to the warm side, will keep things the same.
 
Old 04-09-2018, 08:39 AM   #6
Twolunger
I think you have it all under control right now, and she is adjusting well to the hot side. I have my room temp set at 80 degrees, usually with an air conditioner here in southern Florida, but I still use heat strips in my rack systems, just to be safe. I've mentioned before that my corns usually stay on the cool side, if 80 is cool, but move to the warmer side after feeding.
 

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