husbandry and species questions

[EasternGirl]

I use thermostats for all my heating equipment, to not use them is just irresponsible and could possibly harm an animal when something goes wrong. I take it you still put a guard around the light bulb? I may even use a lower wattage, I'll see whats available in my local pound store

My lamps are on the outside of my tanks so I don't need the guard that you are speaking of. I have aquariums...20 gallon longs and 30 gallon high...with screen tops...so the lamps sit on top of the screens on the outside of the tank. But yes, if you are going to put the lamp in the viv, you would use a guard regardless of the wattage...the 40 watt bulbs do still get hot. Good thinking with the thermostats.

[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.

[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