For the most part under tank heaters are safe but they really should be hooked up to a thermostat or rheostat to controll the temperature. SOme heating pads come with a thermostat already built in or have different temp settings (ie low, med., high etc) which can be used to control the temperture put out by the heating pad.



Older or cheaply made undertank heaters can also overheat, short out etc, causing a spike in temperture which can burn your snake. Though you can use a day light (shinging over a hidebox, layer of substrate etc. (and allowed to go out at night) or a redlight is fine as a heat source for ball pythons, these lights have a bad habit of drying out cages making it more difficult to maintain a proper humidity. Ways of working around this is by providing a moist hidebox (either centrally located, or one at both ends of the cage, so the snake can choose which one he wants). You can also do mistings once or twice a day (or just before lights out, and in the morning if needed).



Myself I use just regular human heating pads, without auto-shutoff and with 2-3 temp settings (high, medium,low). These I set onto a timer, turning them off for several hours (have them on about 6 hours then off 4 hours, or something like that). This prevents the heating pad from burning out, and lessens chances of overheating. I also test the surface temp of the floor of the cage to see if it feels very hot to me. Remember our internal body temperature is something like 98F so if it feels really hot to us, it would be too hot for the snake.

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• ball python burn - holidayfor4, Fri Jun 9 09:08:45 2006
• RE: ball python burn - PHLdyPayne, Mon Jun 12 00:59:52 2006