husbandry and species questions

[Eight]

All sensible questions. Gartersnakes are a learning process we have nine split between four different subspecies and all of them like different things! Sybil is always climbing, Laccy is always basking, You will rarely see Binky because she's normally building a tunnel, Vlad scarpers the minute he sees us yet Adorabelle and Lipwig want to be held and so on. You should have the basics you need, then you can fine tune to the little charater you have. Btw, nice to see another Southamptonite. I was born and raised in Sholing, Southampton.

Ha I lived in sholing until I was 5. Moved away and came back when I was 16. Its a small small world

[Didymus20X6]

I prefer ambient heat from above for my snakes. A 100w incandescent above the water enclosure and a 60w incandescent above one end of the land enclosure. I have a heating pad beneath the land enclosure, but I only use it late fall and early spring, when the snakes are still active but the ambient temps still low. During the summer, I dispense with heat altogether and just let ambient heat and sunlight through the windows be their heat sources.

But I do have to say, my snakes seem to be more active when the temp is higher, in the 90F range. They seem lethargic when it's lower. It might be because my snakes are Mississippi wild caughts, and are just used to higher temps than Yankee snakes.

[Selkielass]

My checkered and Eastern prefer heat from below.
My Butlers garters seem to prefer basking under overhead heat. (Household light bulb) and choose a cool (Room temperature) damp hide over a warm dry one in all but the coldest weather.
Give your snakes some choices in microhabitat if at all possible- you will soon se which are their favorites.

[katach]

We use heat mats and above heat. The lamps are both 40wt bulbs. The big tank had a heat bulb and a non heat. My honey, Bill, dissected an old floor lamp we had to make this.
IMAG0618.jpgIMAG0617.jpg
The first tank has a red heat bulb, Adira is an albino and she prefers the red light to a normal full spectrum. The heat mats are for the colder days, we turn everything off at night. Temps and humidity are monitored in both tanks constantly.