Temps

I know that this topic has come up before, but I'd like to rehash it.

I just went out and bought an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer mainly to test for eggs this summer, at least I hope, but now it's in my rack system. I've never supplied heat (other than occasionally with a heat lamp and lately after feeding). Anyway, the temp reading with my window open and fan on is 75.7. Now, I know everyone here harps about temps being above 80, but that hasn't been my experience.

With those temps I haven't experienced any regurges (knock on wood) or any other problems that are temperature related. With the light on the temps do get up to about 85, but that's only towards the front half of the sterilites, and like I said I normally only do that for about a day after feeding--and it's usually just at night for a few hours.

Does anyone else not use heat---and not freak if temps arent above 80? I know it might not work with others, and some will believe temps have to be above 80 and there must be a gradient, but I just dont buy it. Those temps have been very consistent over the course of the night and now into the morning, so I'm guessing that the temps in the rack are pretty stable.

Thoughts?

i have had 5 successful feedings and a shed (in one piece with temps at 81 with absolutley no temp diff. in the tank) the whole botttom is 81 all the time and this has worked great, and as long as the temp is still at 75 than who cares how you heat it up to that,, to my knowledge 75 is perfectly fine , as long as you get at least mid 70's im sure it doesnt matter what you use to do this. i am a beginner snake keeper but i hope that helps.

Joe, when i brumate it's more a "South Florida" winter vs. a true brumation, and my temps go down to about 73-74 during the day, and i feed them straight thru...Never a regurge or any other problems...I do tend to feed smaller prey during this time, but I dont see any change in the time it took to process the food items...Alot of people keep their animals in one room at a constant temp...I don't know if i'd like to constantly keep them at 75 degrees, but corns are the great "Experimentin'" snake so let us know how it continues to work for you...

Joe, I only use heat with the little guys, once they are established I do away with it.
My house stay's kinda warm anyway. Never had an isuue not using heat.

Healthy, well established corns tend to be very flexible and forgiving! That is one reason they make such great pets. I think they will "get used to" a lot of different conditions, within reason.

Although I really like the gradient idea and suggest it to my customers, I am unable to set up my 1,000+ baby shoeboxes that way myself. I have to just heat or cool the whole room, which I usually keep in the low - mid '80s during the day, most of the time. You can usually "get away with" all kinds of variations when keeping healthy corns. However, I think you will find that if you have babies, newly acquired corns, or corns that are stressed for any other reason (disease exposure, large meals, egg laying, or any other stress), you will sometimes find that the ability to choose their own temp might be just the factor that allows them to successfully deal with the challenge. That is not to say that EVERY stressed corn needs special temps to deal with a challenge, just that it is good to keep that fact in the back of your mind in case you have a corn that is not doing well for any seemingly unrelated reason.

I have been successful as well having no regurges in the year owning my 1st corn. I was currently using a rigged up heat tape (fixtured so it can be plugged into the wall) under half of my corns tank. With the heat tape, temp is about only 70-75 on the warm side, and then room temp on the other side which now since its winter where I am still, is about 65-70.

So i figured hte heat tape wouldnt last forever, and am just currently trying out a store bought heating pad. I read on the forums here to use the low setting, but that seems to only give me temps of 60-65 on the warm side. So i turned the setting to medium and just doubled up the sack that the heating pad is wrapped in (fire resistant potato sack type material), and now temps are at 80 on warm side and 70 on cool side.

Since I have made the change, 2 days ago, snakey has not left the cold side and has been in her hide over there since. Maybe she liked the lower temps. before. Im not sure... so for me... its trial and error. I dont really want to use light heating as I truly beleive my snake hates the light. lol