Humidity issue

What does everyone think is too much of a rise or drop in relative humidity?

If a dwarf Bitis is removed from an area with a RH of average around 60% and is then moved to an area in a private collection with a RH of 75%-80%, do you think its too much of an increase?

I look at the RH in Namaqualand and its averaging around 43%, i look at Durban (where I live) and its between 75% and 80%. If a Bitis caudalis from Namaqualand dies in my collection should I wonder why or could I presume its the rise in RH?
I imagine snakes are better equipped to handle higher or lower temps in the new environment (we can also alter these easily) than humidity.

Any comment? What other factors do you feel are significant?

No I am not planning to to collecting in Namaqualand if that is what you are thinking. It is a known fact that these snakes generally do poorly in captivity and I am trying to establish why.
I have 1.0 cornuta from the West coast where the RH averages around 60%, I hope this is not too much change for him.

Put it in damp moss and spray it twice a day for 6 months , if it survives then we know its not humidity that kills them ! Im in Namibia atm and my nose is bleeding , i hope i dont roll :-P

I really hoped I would get some help from other keepers with this question and am quite annoyed that nobody has anything to offer. It has been on my mind for a long time now and I felt there is enough experience here to offer some input.
Shall I just keep my questions for other forums? Am I being unreasonable?

Stay Cool Rob,

no need to be annoyed...

i am in PNG for research right now, and i have only very restricted possibilities to get online here.. most of the Members here are from Europe, they have normally not such issues to deal with, as the RH in most of Europe rather down is then to high.

well, concerning to the Humidity question of yours;

we have the same problems here in the Philippines with high Humidity, i wrote this somewhere else here already. Only very few snakes in my experience do good with to high Humidity if they been used to 40% only normally. they mostly suffer from upper respiration tract infections after a while and you will find them death in their cages after few weeks. me for instance, i had never been able to keep any Bitis (besides B.gabonica) alive in the philippines. Bitis Species especially seems to have difficulties to deal with that issue. the only way might be to acclimatize the animals slowly, as from 45% to 65% it will not be such a big jump. How is the Humidity at Namaqualand at night? any ideas?

you possibly have a chance to find a relative cold room in your House to bring such animals there and get the RH insight the cages down with a stronger lightbulb? that perhaps helps a bit to decrease the RH.

you also should try to have post mortem analysis on animals who suddenly died. look for lungs etc.pp.

some animals take changes in RH better than others, but you never know before which snakes that would be.

in short words, if in durban, with a RH of 75 - 85% animals do not so well, coz they came from somewhere with an RH of 40 - 50%, i think you can presume there might be sudden deaths connected to....

cheers
Mario

Hi Mario

Thanks for replying.

Well to be honest I have had very few Bitis die for this reason. Any which I have had die was because of something else. I did not ask the question to find answers for what happened to any of my animals, I was just trying to start a topic on something which I thought was interesting and which will certainly affect me sometime since it is very humid by me.

I have cornuta from the West Coast and caudalis from Namaqualand area and both are doing perfect, this is the reason I ask. I have had other cornuta also for 2 years from Namaqualand and my female eventually died but my males lived for longer still. So I wonder if RH is a big problem.

I do not know the RH in Namaqualand in the evening, I will find out.

I understand what you are saying about people in Europe not having problems like this but I find it hard to believe that not one person here had something to say about this issue.

i consider you still lucky... we have 85 - 100% RH here.. that makes it very difficult for some snakes to deal with.. i had even problems with some rattlers, others doing very well...

anyway, i do believe, that to high or to low RH in the cage set-ups do cost some lives and some specimens simply cant deal with it. imagine, Bitis arietans are hard "to Kill" animals. i kept in germany in early years animals they stayed with me for almost 20 years. here in the philippines on the other hand, i just cant keep them alive for longer than 3 months. high temps in connection with RH of 90% is just to much to take for this guys....

i might find some somedays from places with high RH either, i might be lucky by then. or i just immigrate back to SA, then there will be no need for it anymore.

cheers

Well SA do have the best animals Wink

Hey Rob , with sand an cable heat under the tank , I am getting humidity results from 40 - 60 in the enclosure , maybe my hygrometer is not telling the truth ? I think the sand makes for very dry enclosure , have you measured your humidity? Maybe you not loosing this animals from humidity ?

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