Hi, my name is Rochelle and I’m a pet room manager at Zamzows and I’m here today to talk to
you about setting up an enclosure for a snake. This is gonna be generalized for most of your
snake species. We have our website to refer to if you need more specific information on a certain
species of snake. But most of what I’ll set up today is gonna be good for most varieties of
snakes. Now the first thing I have in here is the Ailla fern and spognum pit moss mix, this is a
good bedding for most snakes. It can be moistened with like a spray bottle for snakes that need a
higher humidity and it will retain a lot of the moisture because it has a pit moss mix in. You can
also let it dry out for snakes that needed drier climate and this is a 40 breeder Zilla tank, so it is a
good size for like an adult Ball python or if you have couple of snakes or a juvenile that will fit
in here, but a lot of species, like your Red Tail Boa will outgrow this enclosure and needs
something larger. Now one thing that you can do is put an under tank heater on the cage,
especially in winter, a lot of our homes are colder and the snake needs more warmth at night, so
you would put that down underneath the tank at the same end as your heat lamp. And that will
stay plug in all the time and then you turn your heat lamp off at night. Now the next thing you’re
gonna set in here, you wanna put your water dish in here, I usually put those in the middle. You
wanna nice big water dish that your snake can ideally fit in, obviously that’s going to change as
your snake grows. But, they need something big enough to soak in if they wanted to get in
additional soak, such as when they’re shedding. And they need two hiding spots, one at the cool
end of the cage and one at the warm end. So I have two different things here for them to hide
under, one at each end. And depending on the species of snakes, some are very arboreal, they
like to have branches to climb on, some are more ground dwelling, some is in burrow under the
dirt. So if you have an arboreal species, you would want to put some branches in there for them
to climb on, that way they can get up to a heat source and bask under it, if they so choose, so you
can do that, angle that up there. And then, you can put plants in here to help decorate the tank.
They will give, the smaller snakes can climb on this as well, so that will give them something to
climb on, and help add some greenery to the tank, and it always looks nice if it’s a more natural
looking environment. And then, one thing that you will definitely need is a temperature gage and
a hydrometer which will level, which will read your level of humidity. Now your temperature
gage, is you want to put at the same end as your heat lamp, and you wanna put it about the
middle height of the tank, so that you can tell what the temperature is under the actual heat lamp.
If you put it at the opposite end of the tank, you won't know how warm it is on there for the
snake. The hydrometer can be placed anywhere, it will give you a level of humidity and you can
adjust that by misting your tank down with a spray bottle or a Zilla makes a tropical mist
humidifying spray that works excellent as well. So you can mist down them straight to the
animal themselves if they are shedding. Another things that’s good when they are shedding, is
the Zilla shed ease, you can put this directly in water and soak them in that, and that will help
them shed as well. And then for a heat lamp, you wanna make sure you put that at one end, and
that will sit on top of the screen, so, say we’re gonna make this our heat end, then you wanna
leave it down at this end, and the only light the snakes need is a heat lamp. Snakes actually do
not need UV, like lizards or other reptiles do, so they only need a heat source. And depending on
the type of snakes, since this is a larger cage, it’s farther to the bottom of the cage, you’re gonna
need a pretty high wattage of bulb. There’s a couple of different one’s here, the infrared bulbs
are good at night if you need a heat source at night. And they are also good for day time as well.
A lot of your snakes like Ball python are pretty shy, so if you use an infrared bulb, they’ll
actually be more active, because it’s not daylight to them. And then you can also use the 150
watt, this is 150 watt daylight, this is good for like your Red Tail boas and things like that, and
that will be plenty of heat for them. Those two species in particular like to have a spot that’s
about 85-90 degrees to bask in. And then at night, you don’t wanna let them get much below
about 75-70, otherwise, they get too cool, they’ll try to hibernate. And for any other information
on setting up this snake enclosure go to zamzows.com.
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