Help with Enclosure Setup

[GoldRadio]

Hi everyone,

I would like some advice regarding the enclosure for my beautiful Jungle Python, Jewels, she is just over 18 months old. The enclosure dimensions are L90 x W60 x H120 cm. Currently, I have a 100w heat lamp connected to an on/off thermostat. The temperatures in the hot end range from around 22-25°C according to the thermometer, but sometimes it drops down to 18-19°C overnight. The cool end sits at around 18-23°C.

I did talk to the reptile store, and they told me that a 100w heat lamp should be sufficient, and say an on/off thermostat is fine, but I'm not convinced, I think a 150w heat lamp may be needed. The heat lamp also never turns off as it never gets up to the set temp, and the thermometer, placed in the cool end, is set to 26°C.

Another concern is that Jewels hasn't done a proper poop in almost 4 weeks, which is starting to worry me, she is fed a fuzzy rat weekly.

What does everyone think? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

 

[Sdaji]

Glass enclosures look pretty, but in every other way they are terrible. If you're fighting to hold an appropriate temperature by using 150W heat sources for a small snake in a small enclosure, clearly something isn't right.

A 24 hour spotlight/visible lamp isn't good. At night you want contact heat (typically a heat mat or cord providing heat to the bottom of the enclosure) or ambient heat (which can be provided by floor heat, or you can use heat panels depending on the situation). Some people use CHEs or 'infrareds' which are both terrible and have no reason to ever be used, but are still a better option than a spotlight at night because at least they're not putting out a lot of visible light.

For a spotlight, you do want an on/off thermostat (a pulse proportional thermostat will very quickly destroy a spotlight or many other heat sources and a dimming thermstat largely defeats the purpose of using a spotlight) but a spotlight isn't the right type of heating for this type of snake, especially at night. It can be used as a secondary heat source during the day, great for Murray Darlings, Diamonds, Bredli and diurnal lizards etc, but for a Jungle or any other Carpet I'd just never use one.

I wouldn't ever keep a Jungle Carpet in a glass enclosure, especially in a cool house which seems to be the case for you. I'd use a plastic enclosure, or a wooden one if I wanted it to look pretty (not usually a priority for me, but a good compromise between keeping the snake happy and looking pretty). For a Jungle I'd use primarily floor heat, and if I really wanted to go all out simulating a natural environment in a pretty enclosure, I'd use a heat panel for ambient heat and a higher heat source to encourage it to perch up high, and some soft LED lighting during the day. It would be fine to use a spotlight during the day, but it's not good to use them at night. If you really wanted to get full on into it, you could have separate day and night heat sources in addition to the floor heat. I definitely wouldn't do anything like that, but hey, many people love complicated setups and inviting more risk of problems.

Having said all of this, hey, your snake is still feeding so presumably its happy, so hey, one reasonable option is to just leave it in the enclosure as it is. We're right at the coldest part of Australian winter now so if the snake is happy enough now, it's not going to be an issue at any other time. There are plenty of cases of some snakes being perfectly happy in imperfect environments, so while I would never set something like that up for a Jungle, if your setup is working for your snake, a perfectly reasonable option is not to fix a situation which doesn't have a problem.

As for four weeks without defecating, that's normal. It's a snake, not a human. If a human has four meals in between a bowel movement they don't usually freak out either. Having said that, your snake is a little on the small side for her age, certainly not a problem or anything, she's not itsy bitsy and I wouldn't be concerned, but you can feed a bit more generously if you want to, and more feed going through the system will of course mean more frequent defecation. Of keep feeding moderately and that's fine too.