Carpet Python Care Sheet

You may want to visit our comprehensive Green Tree Python care sheets for more general information. Cage choices and environmental control are areas that apply to Carpet Pythons as well.

Carpets are generally easy keepers that have pretty simple needs.

Here at Spruce Nubble Farm we keep most of our carpets in Freedom Breeder cages, although we do have some in Visions and Boaphiles as well.

Generally speaking we prefer a simple cage with a water bowl and a hide box as the only accessories.

Caging

Most Carpets are small pythons and need 2 x 2 or 2 x 3 cages - this is not true of the occasional large coastal type.

While it certainly is possible to make your own cages it is always cheaper to just buy commercial units, of which there are many.

A rubbermaid box available at any big box store is an excellent choice as well.

Heating/Controllers

We heat most of our cages with Flexwatt and Pro-products heat panels.

They need an ambient temp of 75-80 degrees and a hot spot around 90 - but keeping a close eye on them will let you know if they want a bit more heat.

We have Ranco controllers and have been quite pleased with them – they run about $100. While it is a good proportional thermostat if you want to breed and not manually turn the temperature up and down every day like we do you may want a unit capable of supporting a night time drop in temperature like a Habitat Control Systems Unit (it supports four cages for $250) or a Helix or the like. The alternative is to turn your cages up each morning and down each night – we do a fair bit of that here. Another option that is less expensive but acceptable (not digital) is the BAH-1000 for $33. We like digitals but we do use some of these as well and have found them to be reliable.

Substrate

Here at SNF we use paper cage liners for all of our Carpets. Pretty much any snake Ok substrate is acceptable for Carpets - they can be kept on aspen, mulch, newspaper, or any of the commercial "substrate" mixes.