Hagen Snake Starter Kit

The Hagen Snake Starter Kit puts the terrarium, heating, lighting and furnishings in one box. One thing is missing from it and it is important: a thermostat. Please read the note below before you plug the heat mat in.

Key Features

• Natural Terrarium: 60 x 45 x 30 cm glass terrarium with front opening doors and a screen top
• Heat Wave Desert Mat, Medium: An under-tank heat mat for belly heat, which is how most snakes take their warmth
• Reptile UVB 100 Tropical Bulb, 13W: A compact UVB lamp. Snakes have no strict UVB requirement the way a bearded dragon does, though there is good evidence that low-level UVB benefits them
• Aluminium Dome Fixture, Small, With Bracket: Holds the lamp above the screen top
• Moss Mat, 45 x 60 cm: A moisture-holding liner, suited to a species that wants humidity rather than an arid one
• Large Reptile Cave: A hide, which for a snake is not decoration -- a snake with nowhere to disappear to stays stressed
• Medium Water Dish: For drinking and for soaking before a shed

Check Your Species First

A starter kit is a sensible way to buy the hardware in one go, not a care sheet. Temperature, humidity, UV requirement, substrate and adult size vary enormously from one species to the next, and the single most common cause of illness in captive reptiles is an environment set up to a general guide rather than to the animal in it. Confirm the figures for the species you are actually getting before the animal arrives, and have the enclosure running and stable for a few days first.

You Still Need A Thermostat

This kit does not include one, and it is the single most important thing to add. A heat mat or a basking lamp wired straight to the mains has no idea how hot the terrarium already is -- it simply keeps heating. Contact burns from unregulated heat mats are one of the most common injuries vets see in captive reptiles, and a reptile will often stay on a surface that is damaging it. Run every heat source through a thermostat, and check the actual temperature at the animal's level with a probe or infrared thermometer rather than trusting the dial.

Warm End, Cool End

A reptile has no internal thermostat; it manages its temperature by moving. That means the enclosure has to offer a choice -- a basking spot at one end and a genuinely cooler area at the other, with a hide at each end so the animal never has to pick between feeling safe and being the right temperature. An enclosure heated evenly all over gives it nowhere to go. Look up the exact warm and cool figures for your own species before you set anything up; they differ widely.

UVB Bulbs Expire Before They Stop Lighting

A fluorescent UVB bulb keeps producing visible light long after its useful UVB output has faded, so replacing it by appearance is how deficiency starts. Change it on a schedule -- roughly every six to twelve months depending on type, and write the date on it. Glass and plastic block UVB almost completely, so the bulb has to sit inside the enclosure or above open mesh, and even a dense screen filters out a good part of it.

Who Makes It

Exo Terra is the reptile and amphibian brand of Rolf C. Hagen, the Montreal company founded in 1955. The components in these kits -- the terrarium, the dome fixture, the lamps, the mats and the hides -- are all standard Exo Terra parts, which means every one of them can be replaced or upgraded individually later.

Out Of Stock Right Now

This one is out of stock at the moment. The page is here for reference while we wait on the next delivery -- ask us and we will tell you where it is.

Good To Know

• Put the heat mat under one end only, never the whole floor. The snake needs somewhere cool to move to, and a mat covering the base takes that choice away.
• Never put a heat mat inside the terrarium where the snake can lie directly on it, and never under a thick substrate that traps the heat.
• Check the lid clicks fully shut every time. Snakes and geckos are persistent about corners and gaps, and a small animal loose in a house is usually lost.
• The kit mixes a desert-named heat mat with a tropical-named bulb. The names are product ranges, not instructions -- it is your species' own temperature and humidity figures that decide what you need, so check them and ask us if the kit needs adjusting.
• Check the adult size of your snake against a 60 cm terrarium. It suits a hatchling or a small species; a corn snake or a royal python will outgrow it, and the lighting and heating transfer to a bigger enclosure.
• A second hide, a thermostat, a hygrometer and an infrared thermometer are the four things worth adding straight away.