looky what I found while takin a pee

[MAC]

This is the texas brown snake.
Its a small non-venomous snake who burrows in the ground abit then comes out to eat worms and larve and bugs of all types.

http://www.cox-internet.com/fabcoproducts/herps/txbrown/txbrown01.jpg

http://www.cox-internet.com/fabcoproducts/herps/txbrown/txbrown03.jpg

http://www.cox-internet.com/fabcoproducts/herps/txbrown/txbrown04.jpg

http://www.cox-internet.com/fabcoproducts/herps/txbrown/txbrown06.jpg

http://www.cox-internet.com/fabcoproducts/herps/txbrown/txbrown07.jpg

[Billyman]

Gotta few questions fer ya:

Snakes-along with mostly all other reptiles-like to bask in the sun light from time to time right? Is UVB not as huge an issue with the care of a snakes skin as it is with iguana's? With iguana's, one can regulate the enclosure's temperature to better control the animal (i.e. cooler-slower they go, slower their digestive system, makes them more submissive, etc. The hotter, opposite of the listed ect.) All done without harm to the animal. Is this true for snakes as well? I alternate the temp. of my ig's enclosure to keep them from becoming to use to one. Can and do you do this with your snakes? What temp do you keep there terariums? Do you house them all in the same room? If so, isn't it now the hottest room in the house? Damn Mac, you need another Q&A thread. :p

Oh, and look, as beautiful as they all are, be careful not to over do it. As you've already seen, it gets expensive and time consuming.

[MAC]

Billy, everyone has an opinion about the finer points of enclosure temp but the pros seem to laugh it off cause they know what works for them....I tend to take a moderate approach as I am new to this and still learning what works best for me.
As you know reptiles are ectotherms (they use radiant energy from their environment to regulate their body temp) This energy does NOT have to be sunlight.

It’s important to consider the natural environment of the animal and learn how it thrives there. Animals, in nature, are asked to be flexible. In captivity we can remove a lot of the variation and give them only what they do best in. This original environmental specificity is what makes some creatures more difficult to keep in captivity than others. For instance substrate: Many species of snakes from forested regions will die if you put them in a sandy terrarium such as you would keep a snake from the desert, regardless of the temp or anything else. But most of it is common sense once you learn about your animal and where it originates.

Now, almost everything I have read says to give your snake a temp gradient. Mid 80's on one side to mid 90's on the other during the day and slightly cooler at night. The hide box is supposed to cross the gradient. Yada yada yada….
Here’s the deal. In the summer when it’s warm the animals hunt and eat and digest. In the winter when it’s cooler they tend to eat less (if not at all). They photo period changes. And MOST snake species come out of hibernation, eat and start looking for another snake to make BABIES. (Obviously this is a generalization but it applies to most snakes)
Colubrides (milks, corns, kings, etc) wake up in March sometime full of sperm and raring to go. They cruise around eating and sleeping and trying to regulate their temp across the natural gradient till around November, when they become as inactive as a high school student in algebra class. Not really asleep, but not really adding anything to the equation.
My indigenous pit vipers do the same basic thing.

However…..
I ain’t mother nature.
Fuck her and her temp gradient.
I keep my snake room between 82-85 during the day and it may drop as low as 75 at night. They digest very well at 82. Get them too hot or too cold and they wouldn’t fair so well. These snakes are also mostly nocturnal hunters. So they don’t need one photon more light than the window lets in. They come out when it gets dark and they cruise their cages (see: tupperware) till they cool off enough to go lay down and wait for the morning warm up. I DO add a little humidity with a humidifier though. I don’t know if it makes a crap cause they all have water bowls to soak in (see: more tupperware) and moist moss in their hide boxes (see: continued use of tupperware) but I do know that they need moisture for their shed and with the humidifier running a little each day the room stays around an even 70%.
The boa is the only one who might be exposed to UV light. Full spectrum light is not critical (according to my reading) but boids are very dependant on photo period as their climate doesn’t have real winter and most do not actually hibernate per say. They do have a slow down period and if you intend to breed them you MUST control the photo period and you must give them a slight winter gradient.
The end result is I can breed (so I am told) my milks and corns up to 3 times a year. And I can keep babies out of hibernation and let them grow all winter long to get them to adult-breeding size sooner.

Now to reality:
If this is your pet and you have no intention of breeding it, but want it to be fat and happy then maintain the prime digestion temp with a little cool off on a regular basis (your refrigerator defrosts itself at night, did you know that?) and perhaps shorten the days for a couple 2-3 months a year.
As for your iguanas, they live in and around the equator and bask in sunlight to get heat. It doesn’t really cool off radically in their environments. But they DO need a night time.
I would recommend (based on what I’ve seen) that you use a power strip with a couple timers. 1 for a full spectrum daylight lamp and 1 for a black light or heater element for night time temps (especially in the winter when the ambient temp of the house may be noticeably cooler) I would think that problems with iguana skins from light comes from using too powerful a bulb or leaving the light on all the time. A normal day time shouldn’t hurt them unless the light itself is too much. In which case look into heater elements and specific UV restricting bulbs. Also make sure the humidity is adequate. We all know about getting in the lake in summer time and cooling off. Well when you bake cakes you sometimes put a pan of water in the oven to keep it moist and help keep the heat even (think about the difference between climbing into a nice100 deg bathtub on a cold day verses putting your hand on a nice 100deg stove on a cold day). Same is true for lizards. Increased humidity can aid in regulating heating up and cooling down

A Note: as an ectotherm your animal is the same temp as its environment. If that’s 82 deg and you are 98 deg what’s hot water to them is gonna feel cool to you. Fill up a pan with “warm” water and use a thermometer to see what I mean. Keep this in mind before bathing the creature.

So, try to give them what they need to do their best and fuck the rest.

Once again I remind you that you do what works for you, and I know dick about iguanas. :p