Do i REALLY need a thermostat?

[Onissarle]

Okay... avoiding horror stories, let me try to sum up a pro-stat point of view...

Twenty to thirty years ago when the hobby as we now know it was starting to take off, thermostats, amongst many other things we now take for granted, weren't widely available. A lot less was known about the 'best' captive conditions for various species as many of them hadn't been available for captive keeping for anywhere near as long and only a handful of people had much experience.

People did the best they could with trial and error and a lot of experimentation and guess work to get their set ups working acceptably and discover the best conditions for each species. As the years have gone by, we've learned more about the species we keep in captivity and their needs. Most of which have had a conscensus reached as to their general care requirements.

This has given rise to many care-books and care-sheets being available to newcomers to the hobby. It's also lead to many advances in the equipment and supplies available to us. Dietary supplements, parasite and medical treatments, better optimised UV lighting, IR thermometers, handling equipment and yes... thermostats. Should we not use any of these things simply because we got by without them in the past?

I think the car analogy that has been used is actually quite fair. Go back far enough and cars didn't have seatbelts, airbags, ABS breaks, traction control and any number of other technical improvements. It's a bit silly to say "I've been driving for five years with no seatbelt and no airbags and no-one's been injured yet so I don't need them". One purpose of thermostats is to limit what can go wrong in exceptional circumstances and therefore reduce the risk that the captive animals are exposed to on a daily basis, just like the safety features built into modern cars.

The other function of thermostats is to always maintain the optimal temperatures and conditions that were found over many years of trial and error in the past. Without a thermostat you are only ever getting roughly the right temperature and that will vary up and down to some degree when you aren't looking. Whether or not that remains within acceptable boundaries depends on a number of other factors that vary from instance to instance. As Morgoth has made clear, it depends on the type of central heating, the ambient air temperature, the amount of ventilation, the materials the enclosure is made from, the type of fixture and substrate used, whether or not your house is well insulated, etc, etc, etc. If just one of these external factors fluctuates unexpectedly, it can have a knock on effect on enclosures with unregulated heating equipment.

However, if the enclosure is properly regulated by a thermostat, the only thing that will cause it to climb too high is if the ambient room temperature rises above an acceptable level for the reptile in question (I use air conditioning units that vent through grills in my outer walls to prevent this in unusually hot weather because I have lots of vivs and racks in a relatively small rooms).

It's not all about preventing horrific injuries and such. It's about always looking for new and better ways of doing things. It's about actively striving to provide the best quality of captive care that we possibly can for the animals that we take responsiblity for.

[Onissarle]

as for the comment about the easy bake oven, surley there is a big difference between a item specifically built to cook food and heat in an enclosed space which is 18 inches in size and a bulb
<snip>
just saying thats a bit of an unfair and silly comparison

Not really as silly as you might think. I have seven vivs that have a roughly 18x18 footprint that were custom built to order as part of some of my viv stacks. Each is heated by a bulb and being professionally built, are designed to hold heat well and use good quality glass for the front. There is very little difference between one reasonably insulated, 18 inch box heated by a bulb and another of the same size.

and on a personal point i did say that i believed ur figures and i would never call u a liar, nor anyone i dnt even know,

Unfortunately you've jumped into an already charged atmosphere because Morgoth has been repeatedly insinuating that all the people that have been getting higher readings than him from their mats are making it up and that those who have posted photos have used some form of tampering to fake the results. That's one of the reasons he got people's hackles up.

His basic standpoint has been that mats cannot possibly get hot enough to cause injury or other problems to a reptile under normal operating conditions and refuses to accept any number of testimonies or documented tests that prove the contrary.

It should be pretty clear by now that not all mats have exactly the same output. There are lots of different sizes, wattages, brands and designs of mats and they aren't manufactured to any sort of standardised output or specification. Plenty of people have said and even showed that at least some mats can easily reach temperatures that are too high to be safe in the long term for many reptiles. If a new keeper buys a new mat, you can't assume that particular mat will not get hotter than required by the reptile they've bought.

I've already mentioned that just last week I met a first time keeper who's first snake had died because the heatmat got too hot for a young animal of that species to cope with. This can and does happen on an unfortunately frequent basis.

i think its great to have a stat if you do and they work
and i do fink stats are good anyway!
i spend all my time and money trying to give them the best life i can

I have to admit that I find your comments a little confusing. You say that stats work and are a good thing, so you acknowledge they perform a useful function. You also say that you are perfectly willing to spend money to provide them with "the best life I can".

So why don't you use stats at all? I'd be interested in hearing your reasoning because I ask that question a lot, "why not use a stat?" I can think of many reasons why using a stat is a good thing but have only ever found two main answers that people use to explain actively refusing to use them...

The first is "Because I've always done it this way" and that always annoys me. Just because you've been doing something a certain way for a long time doesn't mean that it's the best way it can be done. I've seen too many people get stuck in 'their way' of doings things and ignore the improvements and advances going on all around them. Thermostats represent an improvement in the facilities available to keepers that allows them to reduce the risks their animals are exposed to and maintain the absolute best conditions for the animals in their care. You may well be able to get away without using one in a variety of situations but that doesn't mean the inherent risks aren't there or that not using a stat is what's best for the animals.

Here's a relevant analogy for you... I work in retail technology and spend a lot of time teaching people how to use things like integrated stock control systems. Some of these people have been running shops for decades and are convinced that their 'rough guess' way of managing stock and profit margins is the best way of doing it. The shop stays open and they turn a profit so there's nothing wrong as far as they're concerned. However, when I sit them down and show them how much more accurately they can control their shop using the new technology, they are often amazed. I've seen plenty of cases when the gross profit margin for the shop has increased by 10-20% by proper use of technology that has been developed for that purpose. Thermostats are the same, just because your way has worked for you so far, doesn't mean you can't do it better.

The other answer is "because I don't want to have to spend another £?? on the animal" and that's why a lot of shops don't try to sell stats with their kits. Uninformed people are less likely to buy the bundle if they add the price of a stat on top, plain and simple. That's what happens when turnover of animals and profits come before welfare.

If someone knowingly makes the decision that not spending the £20 for a mat-stat is more important than the welfare of their animal, what happens when the animal needs £100 of vet treatment? They've already established that making sure nothings happens to the animal isn't worth that £20, so why would they dish out far more treating it when something does go wrong? (It doesn't help uninformed keepers that you can go to an 'exotic specialist' vet and be told it's not worth treating an animal because it's 'just a lizard' and you might as well just put it down... We ignored him, went elsewhere and the lizard is still alive and well many years later). The same goes if you "can't afford" a stat. If you can't afford a stat, you can't afford potential vet treatment and therefore cannot afford to be keeping that animal.

Some of my snakes (ETBs, GTPs, Annulated tree boas for example) are very temperature sensitive. A few degrees too warm, and their digestive systems won't work fast enough to overcome the food going rotten in their stomachs. They regurgitate and all sorts of problems follow. This is not about burns, it's about something far more subtle.
I prefer to use thermostats so I can ensure the temperature is exactly where it needs to be.

Thankyou, that example very well sums up something I've been trying to get across.

The use of stats isn't just about preventing significant injuries. It's about providing the best possible environment for the animals in our care. Being able to accurately maintain the optimal temperatures for that species means their metabolisms function at the proper rate and has an effect on their long term health and lifespan. The 'within a couple of degrees' that you get with an unregulated setup might not be a big enough difference to cause visible damage to an animal but it can certainly have adverse long term effects on the more fragile species.

[hogboy]

Great post
I've been keeping reptiles since the dark ages, well 1982 -)
Back then the only way to control temps was as Morgoth uses.
I used to have loads of varying wattage bulbs, and swithched them around according to the local weather conditions, i managed it Just.
The introduction of the reptile thermostat has changed all of this, i can now be certain of my temps with the very useful stat.
This whole thread has generally been very polite and i've certainly seen zero evidence of any bullying behaviour.
We choose to keep reptiles in captivity, they do not choose to be captives, and i feel we owe it to their wellbeing to use the best available methods of husbandry, and for me the Stat is pretty much top of the list.

[Onissarle]

Originally Posted by hogboy

I've been keeping reptiles since the dark ages, well 1982 -)

That makes me feel young, I don't even remember 1982.

Back then the only way to control temps was as Morgoth uses.
I used to have loads of varying wattage bulbs, and swithched them around according to the local weather conditions, i managed it Just.
The introduction of the reptile thermostat has changed all of this, i can now be certain of my temps with the very useful stat.

You're the perfect example for the point I was trying to make. You did the best you could when there was no better way but have embraced new improvements in captive care as they have become commonly available. It's not always about doing something right or wrong because the truth is always in shades of grey. It's about doing things better than you were doing them before.

We choose to keep reptiles in captivity, they do not choose to be captives, and i feel we owe it to their wellbeing to use the best available methods of husbandry, and for me the Stat is pretty much top of the list.

A wonderfully succinct definition of the phrase "Duty of care" that I keep going on about and it really sums up my views on the topic. That's why I have trouble understanding why people actively choose not to use more accurate and reliable methods of care when they are readily available to them.

[Ssthisto]

Originally Posted by Morgoth

That is by no means the 'norm'. And you admit yourself that it was a temperate species. If I had a species requiring only 70-80f I wouldn't even have a heatmat - a 40watt bulb would suffice for a basking spot. At night the temps don't drop below 72f-ish in my garage so it wouldn't need supplementary heating. No reptile requiring the normal temperatures - 85-95f hotspot for instance, would have become braindead from 95f direct heat - unless it couldn't get access to a cooler area (was this the case with the example you've given above?) and was on there permanently.

Chumley was in a tub with heat underneath; the heated part was only half of the tub, but he had a choice between "not at all warm" and "too hot". The vets put him on the hot side to recover from the anaesthetic, and he was not exactly capable of moving until the damage was done to him. He's not brain DEAD, he's brain damaged.

As far as it goes, corn snakes - which need 85-88 degrees as a hot spot - can suffer brain damage when exposed to 90+ degree temperatures for extended time periods.

[Onissarle]

Originally Posted by Ssthisto

Chumley was in a tub with heat underneath; the heated part was only half of the tub, but he had a choice between "not at all warm" and "too hot". The vets put him on the hot side to recover from the anaesthetic, and he was not exactly capable of moving until the damage was done to him. He's not brain DEAD, he's brain damaged

Morgoth, the point you should be taking from this is that all you need to know about a stat is where to put the probe and plenty of people still manage to get that wrong. People using unregulated heat sources will either make a lot of mistakes through trial and error before getting it close to right or they're only as good as the advice they're given. A vet should be and 'expert' as far as anyone they are likely to meet is. If it can be gotten so badly wrong by a vet who claims to be a reptile and exotic specialist, what about all the people he advises? What chance do they have of getting it right through a complex combination of flaps, mesh, adjustable bulb mountings and substrate tweaking like you suggest?

[kerryrep22]

just to sum up what i was saying i fink that stats are great and very useful, and i may well get one in the future, my only arguement was that i just didnt like the way some people are vilified on here for not doing it exactly as everyone else or textbook, but that does not mean that doing it a different way is completely wrong if it works for the individual. not really alot to do with stats at all to be honest, i just dnt like the way people get slated on here if they go even slightly against the tide of everyone else, and everyone seems to gang up on them. And answering ur question i personally dnt use one because i check my heat mats, i know they are fine, my snakes are fine, my room is a very constant temp anyway, so i do not see the point of spending my money on one. if i ever felt this was not the case and i was worried i would buy one of course, and i may do anyway. but i can plainly see that certain heatmats and certain situations and habitats do get too hot and can cause injuries and problems, that is obvious from what everyone has said on here.

[Morgoth]

Originally Posted by Onissarle

Okay... avoiding horror stories, let me try to sum up a pro-stat point of view...

Twenty to thirty years ago when the hobby as we now know it was starting to take off, thermostats, amongst many other things we now take for granted, weren't widely available. A lot less was known about the 'best' captive conditions for various species as many of them hadn't been available for captive keeping for anywhere near as long and only a handful of people had much experience.

People did the best they could with trial and error and a lot of experimentation and guess work to get their set ups working acceptably and discover the best conditions for each species. As the years have gone by, we've learned more about the species we keep in captivity and their needs. Most of which have had a conscensus reached as to their general care requirements.

This has given rise to many care-books and care-sheets being available to newcomers to the hobby. It's also lead to many advances in the equipment and supplies available to us. Dietary supplements, parasite and medical treatments, better optimised UV lighting, IR thermometers, handling equipment and yes... thermostats. Should we not use any of these things simply because we got by without them in the past?

That is the only thing I need to reply to. I've been looking on the net for when reptile thermostats became widely available but couldn't find anything except people selling them.

The fact that people used to keep reptiles - successfully - without them is 100% proof they are not 100% essential.

Benificial? Yes
Advised? Certainly, in most applications
Time saving? - Yep
Absolutely essential - No

[guypettigrew]

Originally Posted by Morgoth

The fact that people used to keep reptiles - successfully - without them is 100% proof they are not 100% essential.

We kept them alive, yes. But most snakes available in the "old days" were very temperature tolerant, like the ones you have kept, Morgoth.

They rarely bred, though.

A hoby horse of mine is this; there's no point in keeping an animal in captivity unless you can breed it.

Guy

[Onissarle]

Originally Posted by kerryrep22

And answering ur question i personally dnt use one because i check my heat mats, i know they are fine, my snakes are fine,

Exactly what are your temperatures and how do you measure them?

As a couple of people have already pointed out, dial thermometers are notoriously unreliable. You're best using a digital probe themometer or an IR thermometer is even better for quick, accurate readings. You've described the heat from your mats in two ways:

feels warm to the touch but certainly not boiling like ur temps suggest

and

they feel barely even hot to the touch

If it feels pleasantly warm to you, it is probably running hotter than recommended for a corn snake. The correct temperature shouldn't normally feel much more than 'luke warm'. I just want to clarify a point, when you say "boiling", have you mis-read someone's post? 100 celcius is boiling, 100 fahrenheit is a nice cozy warm to the touch.

with a heat mat on the inside of the viv with plastic vinyl floor tiles covering the complete floor including the heat mat.

Are you aware that vinyl products contain VOCs that cause them to out-gas toxic fumes which can accumulate in enclosed spaces? This process is accelerated when you heat them. The effect diminishes over time, so the ones you're using now have probably lost most of their toxicity but it isn't a good choice of product to put in an enclosed, heated space with an animal. Don't just take my word for it, you can read up on it yourself.

It's similar to the problem with MDF as a building material for vivs which a lot of people don't realise. MDF also out-gases toxic substances that can accumulate inside the viv so it has to be very carefully sealed if used in vivs. The concentration of toxic fumes created by either vinyl or MDF may well not be enough to kill the animal in it but it certainly isn't good for their health.

I've even known of a pet shop give someone chipped cedar as a substrate for baby royal pythons. Cedar releases fumes that are extremely toxic to reptiles. The fumes it released killed two young royals before they changed the substrate. They only found out what had actually happened because they came onto this forum and explained what had happened to keepers who have more experience with such things and have done their research, who then in turn explained to them why the royals had died and how it could have been avoided.

my room is a very constant temp anyway, so i do not see the point of spending my money on one. if i ever felt this was not the case and i was worried i would buy one of course, and i may do anyway. but i can plainly see that certain heatmats and certain situations and habitats do get too hot and can cause injuries and problems, that is obvious from what everyone has said on here.

That puts you firmly into the camp of "that sort of thing only happens to other people". There's a good analogy for that as well...

Smoke alarms warn you if something is going wrong so you can do something about it before it gets out of hand or in extreme circumstances, will wake you in an emergency and save your life. There are plenty of people that have had the attitude that things like that only happen to other people and there have been pretty horrific results. Just watch some of the advertising campaigns for smoke alarms for plenty of factual and fictional examples.

Heat mats aren't designed, manufactured, or quality control tested to reach or maintain any particular temperature. They are simply designed to get hot. You'd have to use the same kind of heatmat for a Russian ratsnake as you would for a desert sidewinder even though they have very different optimum temperatures.