providing heat at night or not?

[wdissident]

so i have a boa. i use a 75 watt day light bulb in the day and a night time bulb at night. i was thinking nowhere in the wild does it stay warm 24/7. so if i wanted to save a couple bucks could i only provide day time heat? or do most of you provide heat 24/7. i had to move his heat pad to one of my leopard gecko tanks because the male kept trying to do the deed with the female so now im only left with a day and night bulb for my snake. thanks again.

so do you guys provide heat at night or not?

i;ve heard to increase heat during digestion and to increase humidity during shed

[Gungirl]

Yes I provide heat 24/7. You need to give them a warm spot and a cool spot so that they can choose what they need. In the wild I am sure they know how to find the warmer locations vs the cooler ones.

[SnakeyJay]

I provide heat 24/7... It can't hurt to have it there when not needed but it "can" hurt if its needed and not available..

[reptimama]

I provide heat all the time. Even though they don't get heat 24/7 in the wild per say unless the snake was wild caught it would be use to captive conditions not wild ones.

[Lankyrob]

I also provide heat 24/7 to all my snakes.

[Corey209]

Snakes don't need the resting period like a lot of lizards do, heat is always good for them.

[Chu'Wuti]

Boas come from a tropical to subtropical climate where even at night it is fairly warm. I see you're in CA, but even San Diego is not staying warm enough at night for the good health of your boa. That's if you're keeping it outside. Inside, I assume you're maintaining what most of us would consider normal house temperatures of between 68-72 deg. F. Those temps are too cold for a boa ALL the time.

During the day, your ambient temps (throughout the enclosure) should be 82-90 F and at night, the low should never drop below about 78. For optimal health you should maintain 78-85 F in the enclosure even at night. Those are AMBIENT temps, NOT basking temp; your boa also needs a basking area with temps between 90 and 95.

I have no idea what temps you're maintaining because I don't know anything about the enclosure, the environment etc. that your 75W light bulb is trying to heat. I encourage you to get a digital thermometer; an indoor-outdoor thermometer with probe or a wireless outdoor sensor would be fairly inexpensive.

The second thing you need, unless your boa is already very large, is an under the tank heating pad (UTH) to provide the basking spot or a ceramic heat emitter to do the job.

One way or another, your boa needs higher temps than you're maintaining for overall health and specifically for digestion.

[ilovemypets1988]

most snakes kept in captivity these days need heat 24/7 and the only animal (that i can think of) that can have a heat cycle (i.e. heat during the day, all off at night) is lizards such as bearded dragons.

[reptimama]

Originally Posted by ilovemypets1988

most snakes kept in captivity these days need heat 24/7 and the only animal (that i can think of) that can have a heat cycle (i.e. heat during the day, all off at night) is lizards such as bearded dragons.

This is true for Beardies only if the night time temps don't drop below 62 degrees. If you live in very cold environments you'll still need to provide heat at night. I like using the heat coils for night time warming for all my reptiles because it provides heat but not light.

[ilovemypets1988]

ah ok, i thought several lizards can do it, so i stand corrected, although, ill admit, if you want an animal that wont use much electric, id suggest getting a crested gecko as they can go without additional heat at normally stay at room temps, although this is what ive read and have been told by people who have them, but ill also accept that this also depends on your room temps.

there are other animals aswell such as tarantulas and scorpions (although some will need heat i think)

[poison123]

Sealing your enclosure is a good way of keeping heat in your enclosure through out the night.

[Mark Taylor]

I also keep my temps up 24/7