Scariest thing I had was a lot of years ago before we had internet or experience or friends in the hobby and we got a 10ft and a 7ft boa (both Commons called Bisto and Matilda) in a HUGE vivarium, not knowing and better, they were both on a large heatmat that they came with though thankfully had a stat!!
Didn't harm them per say but their shedding was really poor and they were generally either too hot (on heatmat as they were so heavy!) or cold when off it.
One day thank goodness I had managed to get them both out (getting them back in was the hard bit!!) and I was just wiping down the side of the viv when the heatmat suddenly crackled and I could see the heatmat actually burning up with tiny orange sparks around the cable! As the snakes shift about, its constantly tugging the heatmat around and damaging the cable, we were just lucky I had taken bedding and snakes out and managed to unplug and bin that heatmat!! Had I not noticed and had there been bedding in there, I have no doubt there would have been a fire!!
I also had a heatmat fail off when I was away for 3 days over Christmas, unfortunately, it was an unheated room and got really cold, came home to find both my yearling royals had died :'( poor Justin and Rosie... I still feel dreadfully guilty and will never keep Royal Pythons again
they did have a stat and I suppose that's what actually made it fail, took stat back to shop and even though I had only had that one a few months, they said it was knackered and replaced it for me, gave it to a friend and that one died within 8 months. Pulse stats are way better than the Matstats.
Didn't harm them per say but their shedding was really poor and they were generally either too hot (on heatmat as they were so heavy!) or cold when off it.
One day thank goodness I had managed to get them both out (getting them back in was the hard bit!!) and I was just wiping down the side of the viv when the heatmat suddenly crackled and I could see the heatmat actually burning up with tiny orange sparks around the cable! As the snakes shift about, its constantly tugging the heatmat around and damaging the cable, we were just lucky I had taken bedding and snakes out and managed to unplug and bin that heatmat!! Had I not noticed and had there been bedding in there, I have no doubt there would have been a fire!!
I also had a heatmat fail off when I was away for 3 days over Christmas, unfortunately, it was an unheated room and got really cold, came home to find both my yearling royals had died :'( poor Justin and Rosie... I still feel dreadfully guilty and will never keep Royal Pythons again
they did have a stat and I suppose that's what actually made it fail, took stat back to shop and even though I had only had that one a few months, they said it was knackered and replaced it for me, gave it to a friend and that one died within 8 months. Pulse stats are way better than the Matstats.
/www.serpentusexotics.co.uk/
