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View Full Version : Water bowl huddling--cage too cold?


surfimp
04-17-2002, 09:52 AM
Okay! Boy, do I ever need a lot of hand holding! Thanks to everyone who's been giving me good bits of advice.

Well, after I took out the radiant heat panel last night, I put a human heat pad in underneath, and set my 1500 watt system to keep the room at about 78 F (I think--I've not quite got this system all figured out yet).

However, when I went to bed (after falling asleep on the couch LOL) at about 3AM, I noticed my sweet little girl was coiled up in her water bowl. The rest of the cage temperatures seemed okay, so I just figured she'd found her bowl and was trying it out. The water temperature in the bowl was 82 F.

When I got up this morning, I noticed that the coldest parts of the cage were down to about 77 - 78 F, and she was still in the bowl. Because the bowl was located on top of a heating element, the water was still 82 F. The warm part of the cage was about 80 F.

Is my baby trying to tell me that she'd prefer it be a little bit warmer? She's not in shed (eyes clear), she ate yesterday just fine, and she was very active for most of the day yesterday, and last night until she found the water bowl.

Of course, I want this snake to be the most pampered and over-cared-for possible, so any opinions would be much appreciated. My instinct is that she thought the rest of the cage was too cold, or else she got in her "jacuzzi" and liked it enough that she didn't feel like leaving.

Thanks for any opinions and advice!

surfimp
04-18-2002, 07:04 AM
Well, I upped the room temperature last night, so the cage stayed at no lower than 80 F all night. I still found her in her water bowl shortly after dark (I allow indirect sunlight and darkness through the windows so she gets whatever photoperiod there is, and it slowly lights up at dawn and slowly darkens at night).

In any event, I just think that she likes sleeping in her "hot tub":

http://www.stevelange.net/boa/images/hottub.jpg

Ever see the episode of SNL where Eddie Murphy does an impersonation of James Brown, singing a song called "Hot Tub"?

Uh, Haaaat Tub, yeeee-ah!
Gonna get hot
in the hot tub, uh huh, yeeee-owww!

Mark
04-18-2002, 10:15 AM
my blood pythons will go in their water bowls if I don't have a hiding place in their cages. Do you have a couple hiding spots for her?

surfimp
04-18-2002, 01:21 PM
Yes, three of them, actually:

http://www.stevelange.net/boa/images/playground02.jpg

She seems to like them all...