whats the best way to heat my cage

[tlc reptiles]

what will be the best way to heat my cage at night it is wood and it's size is 5'x2'x2' and i have 2 250 watt heat lights on a thermastat and when they shut down i have 3 40 watt lights that come on now im trying to get rid of the 250watt heat lights and need some idea's on how to heat the cage thank you chad

[Jeff_Favelle]

How can anyone answer that without knowing what animal you are trying to heat up? Every single species of animal is miles different from the next. Its completely impossible to tell you how to heat a cage without knowing what's in it.

Unless you are keeping and breeding warm air. But even then, there's a ton of ways of doing that.

[tlc reptiles]

male and female burm python

[Jeff_Favelle]

Heat tape my man. Depending on the sizes of the Burms (wayyy bad to keep them together, but that's not the discussion here), you'll want about 1/3 of the cage bottom on the OUTSIDE wired with 11 inch heat tape on a rheostat. No lights are necessary, but a 40W bulb during the day won't hurt.

[tlc reptiles]

why is it a bad idea to keep them together

[Jeff_Favelle]

A million different reasons. In fact, post a question in the general python discussion and you'll get dozens of replies telling you not to. I kid you not.

[josefg]

There are several reason for not housing the two burms together:
<UL>
<LI>Snakes are solitary animals and may get stressed if more than one is put in the same enclouse.</LI>
<LI>If one of your snakes is sick, the disease could quickly pass on to the other.</LI>
<LI>If you find a regurged meal, you wouldn't know which snake regurged it's meal.</LI>
<LI>You cannot monitor the snakes as you wouldn't know which one of them defecated as they are in the same enclosure</LI>
</UL>

[mykee]

Another reason, you would need a small room, literally if you were going to house two burms together.