Snake Care Basics
I originally wrote this page for ball python care, but many, many, snakes can be set up in this way. The differences will be primarily in tub size selection. I find the hides/water/bedding works exceptionally well across almost all of the reptiles I keep. Exceptions are noted. This is written from the perspective of an Alaskan, although the care is still accurate across other places. Those of you out of state may notice we have some unique challenges here in Alaska, which I offer my solutions for below.
Yes, I keep my snakes in plastic storage boxes, and I absolutely recommend you do the same.
Click here for a great article that explains in detail why doing this is the way to go, regardless of what that chain pet store employee may tell you. Reptiles are really better off when not kept in fish tanks.
The makings of an inexpensive enclosure that perfectly suits your snakes needs.
A sucessful enclosure must be secure (i.e. escapeproof), easy to clean, hold both heat and humidity well, and just large enough to provide a sense of security for the occupant. Like every other breeder I know of, I find the plastic tub and racking method to be the most economical and provide the best quality of care for the animals.
Enclosure:
When using the plastic tub method it is important to upgrade your snakes tub as they grow. Below is the sizing I use and have success with for ball pythons, disregard the weights when using for other snakes.
These are the exact tubs I use with my racks, so no guesswork if you are using my set up (check out the DIY selection for the rack). If you are not using the same rack as me, or no rack at all, you may want to find a method to secure the lids on to prevent escapes, in the past (ive been doing this since childhood) I have used gorilla tape, large binder clips, and bungee cords for this purpose sucessfully.
These are the exact tubs I use with my racks, so no guesswork if you are using my set up (check out the DIY selection for the rack). If you are not using the same rack as me, or no rack at all, you may want to find a method to secure the lids on to prevent escapes, in the past (ive been doing this since childhood) I have used gorilla tape, large binder clips, and bungee cords for this purpose sucessfully.
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Neonates ( fresh babies to roughly 130 grams).
I use these, which I pick up from the Kenai home depot for less than $2 a piece. The entire box is super clear, including the lid, which makes it easier for me to check on the wee beasties without stressing them when they are first 'born'. They stay in this size until I feel confident they are feeding, shedding, and defecating well on their own, usually 2 months or less. Fits 3 deep per shelf on my rack. For Micro snakes, this is the tub for a couple years use actually. More on micro snake set up at the very bottom. |
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Hatchlings- Roughly 130g to 500 grams.
I use these, the sterilite 12qt, for the next size up, since they fit the modular & lidless design of the rack. You can find them at the Kenai Walmart for less than $3. Fits 2 deep on my rack. -OR- The sterilite 16 qt tubs do fit on the rack with modification (you have to raise the shelf height thats all) for the lidless design however and fit 2 deep. If you are not going lidless, then I recommend building around these, the sterilite 15qt latchtop. They are a little taller, so they dont fit in my rack (without modification) but are wider at the base, and have very secure latches which I like. Note you can not use the sterilite 15qt tub if you intend your rack to be lidless. It will not work. Fits 2 deep on my rack build with modification. |
Juvenile Female / Adult Males 500-900g+
For an adult male ball python (and several species of colubrids), this is as big as youre going to need really, and is a good intermediate for those juvenile females. I pick these up at walmart for $4.34 a piece. A near exact fit at one per shelf on my rack.
These have the rounded bottoms. There are 28qt tubs at fred meyers that are a little more square, I personally hate them and will drive to soldotna just to avoid using them. Why? because the square ones have tight divots at the bottom that poop and bedding gets trapped in, and I find the extra cleaning unnecessarily irritating. Also the square ones are a hair taller which makes them a bit harder to pull out of my rack.
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Adult females, 900g+
These are usually the largest youd ever need, and actually still fit the modular rack, but only if you keep the lids on because they do stick out a bit in the front. Also fits the temporary rack, lidded of course. Its a fairly large box. I pick these up at walmart, for some reason unlike the others, the price for these fluctuates between $8.31 to $11.87 a piece. If you prefer to go lidless, you will need to use the '41 lidless lengthwise' rack (diy section), which fits one each shelf. |
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Exceptionally large adult females
This is the tub for your volta and exceptionally large females. They run roughly $25 a piece at walmart. If you need one of these, odds are you will know of it ahead of time. A ball big enough to need one is rare and often very hard to find unless you are looking for one specifically. This tub also makes a spacious breeding chamber during pairings which is not necessary, but some people like to watch. The latches do come off and the top remains flat enough that you can still go lidless with these, although you will need to build a 'volta rack (diy section)' to accomodate them. |
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Special humidity concerns for Alaskans
Now that youve got the right size tub, theres one thing left to figure out. You'll read over the internet that the amount of ventilation depends on how dry your air is indoors. Some people even say not to ventilate if you live in a really dry area. Im going to ask you to please dont listen to that. |
Here in AK the air is ridiculously dry around 20% relative humidity and thats a problem for our animals, true, but if you do not ventilate your tubs I gaurantee your animals will develop health problems.
Our climate is so cold, it is likely that your indoor air is not being replaced with fresh air often. This leads us to having fairly poor indoor air quality. Its not bad enough to effect us humans, but for a much smaller creature it can be a major issue. Mold or other fungal spores, bacteria, and other irritants float around in our air and eventually will find its way into your snakes warm, humid, stale air tub, and with no ventilation to keep their population in check, the results are respiratory infections, scale rot, and the like.
Okay, I know what youre thinking... but if i ventilate the tubs the dry air will suck the humidity right out. Yep thats true. Very true. My solution? Ventilate them even more. No im not crazy. How I personally solved this problem is to ventilate the tubs as much as i can without affecting their structural integrity, then use a humidifier in the room to keep the humidity up at 50% (a healthy level for humans may I add). In combination with substrate that holds humidity well, I find I can keep a steady 65% humidity inside the tubs without creating a disease producing stale air environment. As an extra defense against poor sheds, I also spray down the enclosures of animals I find 'in blue'. It takes about 3 days for it to dry out again, which is just enough time for the shed to occur without risking any issues.
If youre only doing a few tubs, the method in the video here will suit your needs. If you have many tubs to ventilate, see the DIY section for how to speed ventilate multiple tubs at the same time.
Our climate is so cold, it is likely that your indoor air is not being replaced with fresh air often. This leads us to having fairly poor indoor air quality. Its not bad enough to effect us humans, but for a much smaller creature it can be a major issue. Mold or other fungal spores, bacteria, and other irritants float around in our air and eventually will find its way into your snakes warm, humid, stale air tub, and with no ventilation to keep their population in check, the results are respiratory infections, scale rot, and the like.
Okay, I know what youre thinking... but if i ventilate the tubs the dry air will suck the humidity right out. Yep thats true. Very true. My solution? Ventilate them even more. No im not crazy. How I personally solved this problem is to ventilate the tubs as much as i can without affecting their structural integrity, then use a humidifier in the room to keep the humidity up at 50% (a healthy level for humans may I add). In combination with substrate that holds humidity well, I find I can keep a steady 65% humidity inside the tubs without creating a disease producing stale air environment. As an extra defense against poor sheds, I also spray down the enclosures of animals I find 'in blue'. It takes about 3 days for it to dry out again, which is just enough time for the shed to occur without risking any issues.
If youre only doing a few tubs, the method in the video here will suit your needs. If you have many tubs to ventilate, see the DIY section for how to speed ventilate multiple tubs at the same time.
Bedding
Now that youve got your tub ready, its time to furnish it. bedding choice is important because using an improper bedding can have devastating effects on the life of your animals. A quality bedding should be easy to spot clean, inexpensive enough to replace regularly, be absorbant, and most importantly safe. Some bedding concerns that I have personally experienced/treated are impaction due to ingesting fine substrates (sand etc) and choking due to inhalation of thin wood pieces during a strike.
Many keepers will keep ball pythons on wood chips, and it is believed that they can ingest it in small amounts. I no longer do. After losing two snakes (a green anaconda and ball python) due to wood pieces being inhaled through the wind pipe during feeding, I just cant stand the idea of risking it. Its not a judgement on those that do, just a personal preference due to my own experience.
Many keepers will keep ball pythons on wood chips, and it is believed that they can ingest it in small amounts. I no longer do. After losing two snakes (a green anaconda and ball python) due to wood pieces being inhaled through the wind pipe during feeding, I just cant stand the idea of risking it. Its not a judgement on those that do, just a personal preference due to my own experience.
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Many keepers lately have made the switch to Reptichip, a substrate thats made from renewable coconut husk chips. It is amazingly absorbant, holds humidity well, and the thatched structure of it means that your snakes sit ontop of the substrate instead of inside it. This is awesome stuff to have for that snake that likes to spill their water dish. :p
The only thing I didnt like about Reptichip was its cost. The shipping alone made it extremely cost prohibitive for an alaskan with a large collection to use consistantly. So, since I couldnt ship it myself, I looked for another way. reptichip is basically just coco coir thats not as finely ground up. Then I did some searching and found that generic bricks of coco coir chips already exist. So I made a call to my local gardening store, Panama reds, and I asked Carl how he felt about acquiring and keeping the gardening version, GROW!T, in stock for me. He agreed and it became such a popular item at his store he now frieghts it up by barge regularly. A single brick costs $14 even, and will fill a 66qt sterilite tub. I use not quite three bricks to generously line the housing of 50 animals (4 modular racks) worth. So while it is not quite as cheap as aspen was, the benefits entirely outweigh the costs. Soon I will be uploading a video of how I mix and store cocochips so that the bottom isnt sitting in standing water, so check for that on the DIY page for now, this video off of youtube will suffice. |
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WaterSpeaking of water, you're going to need a water dish. I pick up these 4" end caps from home depot for $1-2 a piece. I clean the end caps if they get soiled, and at the same time that I sanitize the hides. These are better than the couplings in my opinion because you can still use them if you run out of deli cups. They are machine washable too!
I have a large number of animals, so of course I line them with these 8oz deli cups and just throw out the deli cup when its soiled. They fit the end caps perfectly. Sometimes you can get one of the grocery stores to allow you to buy a few reams off of them. Thats the best way to go if you can, but for me its been horribly inconsistent. On occasion ive had to buy them in bulk from walmart online, which ive found has the best price even with their ridiculous 'location surchage'. Seriously, anchorage is the 5th largest cargo airport in the world... why are we paying a $30 location surcharge on a $30 box?! No one has ever been able to answer that. This is simply because most stores arent willing ship them up to you at all. Sav-u-more, Three bears, Amazon, etc Nope nope nope. Tried with online stores, but time and time again, if theyre willing to ship them, theyll charge you something close to $100 to do so. So walmart it is. Ahh the life of the Alaskan herper. |
Hides
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For hides I head on down to panama reds where I also get my bedding. Here I pick up planter saucers. You want one thats just big enough that the animal can squeeze in there and feel the hide touching in on three sides. For babies that means 6", from there you move up to 8", then 10" and after that I use the deeper black 14" beasts for the big girls. you'll need to cut an access hole into the side with a sturdy pair of scissors, or if you have them on hand gardening shears make it a lot easier.
The point of the hide is to provide security, and if the critter in question doesnt feel secure they stop eating. Especially true of ball pythons. Some say you dont need hides if youre using a rack. Ive found this to be true on a limited number of animals, Those that are so feed aggressive they always eat no matter what. You find their hides buried under the substrate... Thats the kind you can skip this step with, but if you dont have one of those, or you just acquired the critter, dont skip this step ok? ok. |
Heat
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I use 52 foot zoomed heat cable under the back third or so of the tub. I attach it to the rack with zipties, but you can use foil tape too. This is a heat element made and designed for this purpose. Controlled with a herpstat and equipped with its own internal safety shut offs, this method is safe people. Very safe.
Lots of people use flexwatt instead. Thats cool. I dont knock those who do. I do where this cant fit. Not my preference though. Im not an electrician and I dont pretend to be. The homemade nature of flexwatt does pose a fire risk no matter what jo blow on facebook says. It just does guys. even in an automated system it can fail. I Lost a whole incubator full of clutches when the sensor on my herpstat unexpectedly failed once- it can happen with flexwatt too. Just my two cents. |
My equipment
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Health Care-
Youre going to want to clean any tub that is visibly soiled when you find it, and do a full tear down at least monthly. I disinfect my cages and equipment with F10sc, a seriously awesome nontoxic veterinary disinfectant that offers top notch biosecurity and superior safety. The concentrate makes a ton of spray bottles full of disinfectant. I probably go through one small container of concentrate every 6 months with 50+ snakes. I also treat tubs, cage furnishings, equipment, etc with Bioshield75 at least once every 3 months, which forms a microstatic barrier against and "eliminates 99.9% of bacteria, including Staph/MRSA, and continually inhibits the growth of bacteria, mold and fungi for up to 90 days". Plus its so safe that you can use it on cutting boards and food prep areas designed for human use. Its that good. Its super fine mist so I go through one bottle of this roughly every 2 years. yes they are more expensive than the more common bleach, but soo much safer, they kill so much more nasty bugs and prevent others that bleach just cant. And they are easier than bleach to use. No fumes, no mixing, no guess work. Did you know you have to mix fresh bleach every day or its practically useless by tomorrow? I didnt. good to know right? Think about it. Just one vet bill prevented saves you anything you might have saved using inferior disinfectants anyway. In a large and valuable collection, the last thing you want is a disease outbreak. My snakes are never sick. ever. period. I know its due to my high level of biosecurity. If I could start over, these would have been the first products I would have ever bought. Thats how much I love them. Equipment- For feeding time, I absolutely can not do without a pair of these 12" curved locking hemostats. the control and safety these give you for feeding time is unmatched. definitely a step up over tweezers or bbq tongs lol! I use this temperature gun I picked up in store from Home depot kenai, its useful because it can show you the range of temperatures inside a tub instead of just what one exact spot is at. Pretty cool. I would totally get hand cramps if i tried to hand mist all my tubs, fortunately I bought this one gallon capacity mister at homedepot for less than $10. The mist can go from stream to super fine. Its awesome. sooo much easier. I also own A mistking system, but find it unusable for racks, so this is it. I bought a pair of these long cuff gardening gloves at walmart for like $8. They are made for rose bush work, so offer good protection and a lot more dexterity than any reptile handling gloves ive had before. They arent fang proof so definitely dont be working with anything venemous expecting these to save you, but these have kept me from some serious nastiness in situations like when a large constrictor needs to get a shot and isnt happy... Monitoring Systems: I use a two prong approach. First I have all of my heating elements plugged into a Herpstat6, which constantly monitors and controls the temperature and humidity inside my reptile room and inside the tubs themselves. It also controls my incubator and the light cycle in my room. There are herpstats 1, 2, & 4 as well for those with smaller collections to manage. The herpstat can be programmed to set off audible alarms if anything goes outside of the parameters you set, but that only does you good if you happen to be around to hear them. So what happens if there is a power failure in your incubator while youre in town shopping for several hours? Thats where these bad boys come in. The accurite smart hub has sensors that read the temperature and humidity of where they are placed every 16 seconds. It then relays that information to your phone in real time. You can program it to send alarms if anything goes outside of your custom parameters, and it will send an alert to you via text, email, and a notification on the phone app instantly. With these beasts, you'll know of any possible emergency, anywhere in the world, within 16 seconds. Now thats peace of mind. They have daily use too. I can check on my phone at any time and see exactly what the temperature and humidity of my incubator is at, and each of my racks at different levels. I always know ahead of time if the eggs will need more water soon, stuff like that. Pretty cool. |
... a word on 'Micro' Snakes
Micro snakes is what I refer to as snakes that are so small that traditional keeping needs adjustments to cater to their tininess. The same basics apply as mentioned above with just a 'little' alterations. pun intended. Micro species would be your baby spotted/stimsons pythons, garters, house snakes, milksnakes, cal kings, and rosy boas. These babies are pretty tiny so they need a little different care until they get a bit bigger.
caging micros
With micros it is incredibly important to be certain they can not escape. They are very very good at it. For me, I use the boaphile 20 hole rhino raxx, snake rack. It has 1/16th of an inch clearance, but I still dont trust it with garter snake hatchlings. So what can you do?
Latch tops. Sterilite, homz, etc sell tubs with latch tops. 6qts. For garter snake babies, this is really your only option in Alaska. For lidded racks all you got to do is account for the clearance of the latch. I recommend against using any rack for garter snake babies. They are just so very very good at escaping. Otherwise you should be good as long as your clearance is 1/16th of an inch.
Latch tops. Sterilite, homz, etc sell tubs with latch tops. 6qts. For garter snake babies, this is really your only option in Alaska. For lidded racks all you got to do is account for the clearance of the latch. I recommend against using any rack for garter snake babies. They are just so very very good at escaping. Otherwise you should be good as long as your clearance is 1/16th of an inch.
Furnishings
Just like the care for other snakes, micros need the same basic furnishings: bedding, water, hides, heat. I have my tricks for this too.
For bedding micros I use reptichip, same as anything else.
For water and hides I use these you and me hamster dishes which i pick up at petco for 59 cents a piece. They come in funky different solid colors. I like the green personally. I put one on each side.
The reason I use these is three fold. 1) because they have this awesome lip on the sides, which gives them a place to crawl into the underside of the dish. Theres two hides ;) #2) a 2oz condiment cup fits inside them perfectly. Theres your water, and its disposable cup makes it to where you dont have to clean the dish daily. 3) im really paranoid that micros will drown in the 4" end cap set up the larger ones have. its never happened, but it seems like it could. Oh and they are top rack dishwasher safe, definitely a bonus.
Heat:
This reason right here is why I dont use deli cups as housing for micros. A lot of breeders do, but i cant understand how they can provide a temperature gradient across only 4" of space. So mine go into 6qts and are heated the same as the others.
One other thing. In micro cages I like to use a plastic hardware netting to create more floor space. they can stay under it, wrap themselves up in it, climb up above it. creates lots of micro climate options. The Anteresia pythons in particular are fond of it.
For bedding micros I use reptichip, same as anything else.
For water and hides I use these you and me hamster dishes which i pick up at petco for 59 cents a piece. They come in funky different solid colors. I like the green personally. I put one on each side.
The reason I use these is three fold. 1) because they have this awesome lip on the sides, which gives them a place to crawl into the underside of the dish. Theres two hides ;) #2) a 2oz condiment cup fits inside them perfectly. Theres your water, and its disposable cup makes it to where you dont have to clean the dish daily. 3) im really paranoid that micros will drown in the 4" end cap set up the larger ones have. its never happened, but it seems like it could. Oh and they are top rack dishwasher safe, definitely a bonus.
Heat:
This reason right here is why I dont use deli cups as housing for micros. A lot of breeders do, but i cant understand how they can provide a temperature gradient across only 4" of space. So mine go into 6qts and are heated the same as the others.
One other thing. In micro cages I like to use a plastic hardware netting to create more floor space. they can stay under it, wrap themselves up in it, climb up above it. creates lots of micro climate options. The Anteresia pythons in particular are fond of it.
Lizards, turtles, and Tortoises
As for lizards, turtles and tortoises. They are kept in the 'black rack' which is heated by flexwatt/lamps/and underwater heaters for aquatics. Hides are still the plant saucers for terrestrial species, but the black rack inhabitants tend to get a lot more furnishings/enrichments because well, they will use them whereas snakes do not. More information on how to set these up is found on the species links as well as on the black rack's page.
Now, Im not saying you have to do it like me. After all, we may have vastly different needs. If you have a small collection, you wont need a herpstat6, but you will need a way to control your heating elements (may I recommend the herpstat2? lol). So you may find you need to adjust accordingly. My aim here is to show how I do things, what works for me, and at very least to prove that alaskans can do this despite all our challenges.
