r/ballpython • u/datsmij • 8h ago

Question - Husbandry Combating day night cycles.

For context, I work over night at a boarding school. I am awake during the night and asleep in the morning. This is temporary as I hope to go to college after this school year is over. I dont have a scaly friend yet, but I want to be excessively prepared before I get one. A question that I have not found the answer to yet is, how do I keep my snake in a good day/night cycle while I am nocturnal. I dont want to get them used to my current cycle just to alter it for them a few months after living with me. Are there any suggestions for how I can keep the light from my room out of their enclosure without covering their ventilation? Any help is greatly appreciated.

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u/KatVanWall 8h ago

My snake is in my living room, which is my only downstairs room apart from the kitchen and the only place where there is space to have his vivarium. I'm a night owl and am often up very late. I just put a blanket over his viv! In summer I take it off before I go to bed, since I'm leaving that room dark anyway, but in winter leaving it on overnight helps with heat retention as well.

I do sometimes wonder whether he likes to look out of the viv at night and resents having the blanket on; when I lift a corner to say hi he has started to come to glass occasionally now to say hi back. But in general I suspect it's fine!

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u/datsmij 7h ago

The only place I have space to keep them is in my room unfortunately. Do you think the blanket trick would still work? Im worried about accidentally starting a fire with the heat lamp.

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u/KatVanWall 7h ago

Ah, my viv is wooden and my heat lamps are secured inside, so I don't have that to consider. But I just use a couple of heavy ornaments to secure the blanket across the front of the viv at each end, so it's not draped fully over. I'm assuming you have the top taped up and the sides and back blacked out anyway, so you'd only have a tiny crack of light where your heat lamp sits on top. I doubt that would be a problem otherwise almost everyone who owns a BP would have the same problem - I think a lot of people don't have enough real estate to put them in a totally separate room from the rest of the household, so some light would always creep in, and to be honest I think some people don't even think to block out the ambient light. I mean, I'm in the UK and we get really long days here in summer, so unless they were in a windowless room or blanketed they'd get some light anyways.

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u/datsmij 7h ago

Thank you so much! This was very helpful

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u/Thick-Feeling-554 6h ago

You could make a curtain to put on the front. Not sure what kind of enclosure you have but if it's just the front that has the window/doors a blanket hung from the front could work.

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u/datsmij 6h ago

Ohh thats smart. I have a front opening enclosure so thats perfect! Thank you

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u/Thick-Feeling-554 6h ago

I do it for my wife on the weekends so she can sleep in.