Newbie Hooked

Okay so I’m back with more questions. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. Now that my daughter has ball pythons I find myself falling in love with them. I plan on getting 3 or 4 different females and a few males within the next year. Morph still undecided but probably something simple to start off with. This time I want to be prepared so I want to build a rack. I have a few ideas on the actual construction but I am lost when it comes to heat. I just wanted to know what you all use or recommend. I have read several post about fires and I am trying to avoid that at all cost. Also do any of you raise your own feeders? Cheers…

The answers you seek are here:
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/forum.php

Most common heating element that people use with a rack is FlexWatt Heat Tape. It's perfectly safe as long as you also use a thermostat (preferably proportional) with it. But the previous poster was correct; you can likely find all the answers you need there. Also, if you're planning on building your own rack you should check out the DIY section. Tons of great info in there.

Originally Posted by bcr229

The answers you seek are here:
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/forum.php

BPnet is a good site, but they came to the discussion forums HERE so perhaps we can try to help?


to the OP:

I use rack systems with flexwat. There are lots of different ways to heat, a lot can depend on what type of caging you will be using. An under-tank heater or a radiant heat panel would probably be good choices for a single enclosure. The main thing you'll want to do is get a nice thermostat to regulate the temps (and avoid overheating).

Since I have quite a few snakes, I buy bulk frozen feeders. When I had a smaller collection I did breed my own for a while but found I was spending more time and effort caring for the feeders than the snakes they were for. Depending on where you are, there may be local feeder suppliers that you can get smaller quantities from that way you don't have to breed your own.

Good luck!

As others have said, flexwatt heat tape is definitely the way to go. It's much more efficient than the heat pads you see at reptile stores. For a cheap thermostat you can buy a light dimmer switch and just plug into that, but that requires you to manually monitor the temps for a week or so to find the "sweet spot". You can look on ebay for cheap thermostats that will work well too. Unless you're running a major breeding operation there's really no point in investing $200 into a controller with night drops and all the bells and whistles.

I raised my own feeders for a while, but you're going to run into two issues. The first is that they're a pain in the butt. It's going to take you at least one year to breed out the rats/mice that aren't killing their babies, killing each other, biting you every time you put your hand in the cage, etc. They also stink, love to flood their tubs, have to be cleaned more regularly than the snakes...you get the idea.

The other issue (and a big one) is that unless you have an entire rat breeding operation going you're never going to have enough of the sizes you need. When I was breeding them I had 10 breeding tubs going with one male and 4 females in each. I also had a "mom rack" where pregnant or nursing moms had their own space to raise their babies and didn't have to worry about moms fighting. I also had growup tubs for females so that my breeding racks were always full. I STILL never had enough rats to feed all of my snakes.

My snakes are all on frozen feeders anyway, it's much safer that way. Let's just say that you absolutely could breed and freeze your own feeders as I did for a long time, but one of the happiest days of my life was when I sold those racks. Felt like a huge weight had been lifted. To each their own though, I'm sure some people find breeding rats enjoyable. It just wasn't for me.

Thanks guys some great information and I didn't even know about the other website. Also thanks Nick I didn't realize that mice were such a pain. I really hadn't researched it at all. I was fortunate to find a pet store much closer to me that raises their own mice and rats. The next year will be an adventure and learning experience for me.