Snake Room Setup: How to Plan Your Room and Rack Layout

Count the tubs before you buy the rack

A snake room fills up by tubs, not by square feet. So start with one number: how many tubs you need at the busiest moment of your year. For most ball python breeders that is a few weeks after the last clutch hatches, when every baby is still with you.

• Adults. Every breeder and future breeder has its own tub. Ball pythons are kept one to a tub.
• Holdbacks. A female you keep this year needs a tub for years before she is big enough to breed. Read ball python breeding weight for when that is. Plan her tub now.
• Quarantine. Every animal you bring in needs a tub away from the collection for months. Count two to four if you buy at shows.
• Babies on hand. Females you plan to breed, times average eggs per clutch, times your hatch rate. Ball python clutches often average around six eggs.
• Open tubs. Keep about 15 percent empty for size-ups, a sick animal, and the clutch that came in bigger than you planned.

Rack sizes and tub counts

Racks are built around one tub size, so pick the tub first and the rack follows. These are the sizes most ball python breeders use. They are common practice, not a rule, and your rack maker's tubs set the exact cut points.

Who	Weight	Tub
Hatchlings	up to about 200 g	6 qt
Growing young snakes	about 200 to 500 g	15 or 16 qt
Males and most adults	about 500 to 2,000 g	28 or 32 qt
Big females	2,000 g and up	41 qt

Then count the slots. A rack's tub count is rows times columns. Here is a working room as an example: a hatchling rack of 10 rows by 5 tubs holds 50, a female rack of 10 rows by 3 holds 30, and a male rack of 10 rows by 4 holds 40.

Write your rack list down before you shop: tub size, rows by columns, total tubs, and who lives there. The room planner has the sheet.

Hatchling racks and adult racks

Keep babies and adults on separate racks. They use different tubs, eat on a different schedule, and need checking more often. Put the hatchling rack where you work most: close to the feeding station and the scale, at a height you can see into without a step stool.

Size the baby rack for the peak you worked out above. If you plan for 48 babies at an 80 percent hatch, a 50 tub hatchling rack just covers them. A better hatch needs more: the planner shows 63 tubs to have ready for 10 females.

Then plan the next tub before it is needed. A fast-growing hatchling outgrows a 6 quart in months, and every size-up needs an open tub one size bigger. Adults hit the ceiling too, and a big female with nowhere larger to go is a rack you should have bought last season.

Aisles and workflow

• Aisle width. The aisle has to fit your longest tub pulled all the way out, plus you standing behind it. A 41 quart tub is close to 3 feet long, so adult racks want an aisle of about 4 feet. Hatchling racks with short tubs can sit closer.
• One loop. Set the racks in the order you work: hatchlings first, then adults, quarantine last. Feeding night should be one walk down the room, not three trips back.
• Heavy tubs at waist height. Put 41 quart tubs between knee and chest height. A full tub on the top shelf is a strained back, or a dropped female.
• A station by the door. Scale, prey thawing, spare tubs, paper and a trash can, with a sink as close as you can get it.
• No carpet. A sealed floor wipes clean after a spilled water bowl.
• Every tub has an address. Rack plus row and column, like Females 1, 3-3. When anyone asks where an animal lives, there is one answer.

Heat and climate zones

Heat the tub, steady the room. Heat tape on the rack gives each tub its warm end. The room's job is to hold the cool end where it belongs: about 76 to 80 F for ball pythons, with a warm surface around 88 to 92 F.

• Heat rises. The top shelf runs warmer than the bottom. Put a thermometer at both, and check them on the coldest and the hottest days of the year.
• Pick the steady walls. Keep racks off outside walls and away from windows, doors and air vents. Those are the spots that swing.
• One thermostat per heat source. Plan for a thermostat to fail someday and add a backup or a high-limit control. Our rack setup guide covers probe placement and backups.
• Zones. Give the incubator the steadiest spot in the room, and give quarantine a zone of its own.

Quarantine

New animals do not go in the main room. The best quarantine is a separate room with its own air. Second best is the far end of the house, with its own tools.

• Work it last. Every time. Wash up after, and never carry tools, gloves or water jugs between rooms.
• Plan for months. Many breeders run quarantine for 60 to 90 days, some longer. Those tubs stay full the whole time, so they belong in your count.
• Write the steps down. Our Clean Room Protocol walks through quarantine one step at a time.

Power and safety

A snake room runs heat around the clock, so treat the power like part of the build.

• Add up every watt. Heat tape, thermostats, lights, fans, a space heater. Then check which circuit each one is on.
• Stay under 80 percent. For loads that run for hours, keep a circuit under 80 percent of its rating. On a 15 amp, 120 volt circuit that is 1,440 watts. On a 20 amp, 120 volt circuit it is 1,920 watts.
• No chains. Plug into the wall or one rated power strip. Never chain power strips together, and do not run a room on extension cords.
• Alarms. A smoke alarm in the room, and a temperature alarm that warns you about high and low.
• Call a licensed electrician for new circuits, and use GFCI protection near the sink.
• Plan the outage. Know what keeps heat on if the power goes out, starting with the incubator.

Room to grow

• Save a wall. Leave one wall and one outlet empty for the next rack.
• Buy before you are full. When the room passes 90 percent full, the next rack is already late.
• Stay in your sizes. Grow in the tub sizes you already run, so tubs, hides and bowls move between racks.
• Count next year now. Every female you hold back this year is an adult tub on next year's list.