Optimal Temperature - Is there such a thing?

[zwyatt]

Ok, my apologies if this has been covered at some point. However, I can't remember a thread dedicated to it, so here goes...

I'm wondering what people's opinions are as to whether there is any sort of optimal temperature for our snakes to assimilate their food as efficiently as possible? Obviously, at this point in the game, I've learned all about the warm and cool side and trying to maintain the warm side somewhere in the 80's, etc, etc...BUT I'm also quite certain that with all the members and experience on the forum that plenty of people (especially those who have kept corns a long time or have bred them and cared for many of them) have tended to use all sorts of different temperatures probably ranging from anywhere in the 70's all the up to the upper 80's. SO...pertaining to how efficiently a cornsnake is able to digest and use as much of it's ingested food towards growth and reproduction:

- Do you think that as long as the temps are in the low-mid 80's it's all about equal?
- Do you think that upper 70's is as good as low-mid 80's as long as they aren't regurging?
- Do you think that it probably varies from snake to snake to the point that it's not worth trying to optimize?

I ask because I've been feeding my '06 Granite small adult mice (or just above hopper size, whatever you like to call them), and on a volume basis it seems like many times what goes in one end is almost equal to what comes out on the other, which led me to wonder if maybe the temperature was a few degrees higher might she assimilate her food more efficiently? FWIW, her temps are always in the 82-85 range.


Please feel free to cite your own opinions, other's opinions, anecdotal evidence or pure conjecture, but also please feel free to distinguish between them for the sake of all those who might be reading!

 

[Roy Munson]

Well, you always see people posting that all snakes are different, and I guess I have to go with that regarding this topic. I've kept groups of hatchlings in the high 80s, and most thrived at these temps. But there always seem to be one or two that start kind of slow. I usually move these slow-starters to cooler adult racks, and almost every time, they take off!

In my experience, I think a temperature gradient makes a big difference. Most of my juvies and older are kept in the mid 80s for the warm side, and mid 70s for the cool side.

But I also think you have to ask the question: optimal temps for what? Good growth rates? Male fertility? Female fertility? I don't really have any real data to speculate on all of these items.

And food-assimilation may also have genetic components. I have situations where two snakes in the same rack shelf differ greatly in this regard. I have monster, fast-growers that hardly seem to defecate, and next door will be a moderate-grower that'll give me a big, nasty stool every time. If you're really concerned about your snake's food-assimilation, I'd experiment with temps and gradient ranges.

 

[zwyatt]

Truthfully, I'm not really concerned about Zephyr's progress, because she seems to be growing just fine. I guess my curiosity got the best of me. Plus, I'm the teaching assistant for an ecology course and we had a lecture about food chains and energy transfer efficiency last week and that got me to wondering.
I completely agree on the genetic front. It does get frustrating and redundant when the answer so often tends to be that "It depends on the snake", but that's the nature of...well, nature. But I find it interesting that you start your younger ones off at warmer temps. I've always aimed for 80-85. Admittedly, you have a lot more experience than I. That's why I was curious to see if other people who have kept a lot of snakes have, over the years, come to feel that temps in the upper 80's, for example, were inherently better than lower 80's or vice versa. That is to the extent that something like optimal temperature can be generalized across an entire collection or an entire group of related or unrelated hatchlings.

Thanks for your input!