I currently own two large normal females, a yearling pastel male and a baby pastel female. I am looking for a better method to heat my animals. I am torn between heat tape or heating pads. What is the cheapest and most effective way to heat say around 6-8 balls (I am going to expand my collection in the semi-near future so I want to think ahead). The main problem seems to be thermostats. It looks like it could get really expensive having to buy thermostats for every two heating pads / heating tapes. Are there any heating pads that I could safely do without a thermostat? I saw some heating pads at Big Apple supplies that have different settings, but I don't know if its safe to trust those or what.



I am currently keeping my snakes in plastic Rubbermaid type cages and I am using butcher's paper / news paper for each. I have a large shelf that while its not custom built for reptiles allows me to keep all 4 cages (with room for a 5th) neatly stacked.



Another question about heating tape: does each section (I assume you just put once section on each cage) require its own outlet to a thermostat?



So basically I need a recommendation on the type of heating pad and on what type of thermostat to get.



I plan on trying to breed this season and would also like some suggestions on relatively inexpensive incubators (again, saw one for around 60 or so at Big Apple and some other sites.) Do I need a thermostat dedicated just to the incubator, or do some models come with a build in incubator. It seems like the Hova Bator incubator has a thermostat, does that mean I just need a heating source and I'm good to go?



Also note I live in Florida, so humidity most certainly won't be a problem for either my snakes or the incubator. Though I was warned it gets a little hot here during the summer to actually keep my snakes outside (pretty much a high between 89-92) from now until September.



And one final question (I have so many! ). One of my females (when I got them both, they each weighed around 1200g) has never eaten for me, it has been over a month. All my other snakes are kept in similar conditions and have had no problem feeding. She is very alert and probably the most active out of all of my balls, she moves around a lot and is very eager to get out of her cage to explore. (I have a hide and the temp and humidity is good). I even tried a live rat and she showed absolutely no interest in it. I've tried dangling it in front of her, smashing the head to help get the smell to circulate better, feeding her in her cage or in a feeding tank. The only other solution I've heard of is switching to mulch bedding. I'm sure you've had to deal with a lot of problem feeders, any tricks I haven't thought of? I know I asked before but nothing I've tried seems to work and I'd really like to get her eating so she is nice and plump for breeding season (plus I get really stressed when my animals don't eat or are otherwise acting strange).

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