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Lighting, Heating and Humidity for the Diamond Pythons
Lighting
Light cycling, or photoperiod, is a major emphasis of many diamond breeders. For the most part the theory is of little use. Early failures with diamonds lead many herpers to believe they had special light-quality requirements. Actually, what they need are light periods that follow our four seasons, with short days of winter and long summer days. Special lights they do not need, although there’s nothing wrong with using them. I use Vitalites or plant grow lights to help keep my cage plants thriving, but no cage light at all works just fine. Ambient light cycled to our North American seasonal day-night fluctuations are all the diamond python needs. It is highly unlikely they absorb any ultraviolet radiation from the sun, as keepers sometimes hypothesize. Surely though, in the wild they do need to get heat from the sun, a commodity that can easily be supplied in captivity through various artificial heat sources. Give a diamond a hot-as-hell basking source and you’ll have one happy snake. Keep its cage hot and you will do the poor animal a disservice. Like most herps, it’s best to provide a temperature gradient in the cage, where the animal can select it’s own, preferred temperatures. That’s why I like long, tall cages. It’s easy to provide a hot basking site, with places for the snake to retreat to hold it’s warmth (like a cozy hide box, well insulated with bedding) or a spot where the snake can go to cool off if it so desires. Generally they prefer to simply coil tightly to retain their warmth close to the level achieved while basking.
Heating
Diamonds do well if kept in the low-to-middle eighties (day) to high seventies (night) during three quarters of the year. The key to not only breeding, but to successfully maintaining HEALTHY diamonds is to give them time off each year, to duplicate the natural seasonal cycles these wonderful snakes have evolved to biologically expect from nature (or in our case, from their captive environments). Cooling theories vary considerably, and certain factors must be considered.
Humidity
Diamonds don’t come from particularly humid environs, but nevertheless keeping most pythons on the dry side can be hard on their respiratory systems. A cat litter pan, filled with mulch or shavings, kept very damp, works wonders. Occasionally you’ll find the snake burrowing through the wet medium, and sometimes they’ll even bury themselves in it. If that’s what they want, within limits, then that’s fine with this keeper. For the most part, though, if the cage humidity is sufficient (40-70%), diamonds won’t seek higher humidity sources.
This care sheet is Copyright of Stan Chiras and can be found at http://sthcoastherpsociety.bizland.com/diamondpaper.chtml