Cage temps on a cool day like today are around 80 on the cool half, 90 ish on the warm half, and the top piece of wood itself ends up being a little over 130. When he settles down to bask, his back ends up being about 6 inches away from the light, and I've tempgunned him at 145 -150 a couple times. There's a reason I leave it so high, though.



The only time he really basks directly under the light is for about 10 minutes immediately after eating rodents, and then he'll wedge himself into a hidey hole in the top of the stack under the light. After a few months of "is his stack too close to the light" and tracking where he was spending his time, he seems to prefer being able to hide at that height/temperature, rather than bask at a similar height and temp. Even when he was kept with a red light at a similar temp, he preferred being hidden and warm to basking and warm.



I know the bulb looks close but a lot of that's due to the angle. And it is closer than I'd recommend for someone who wasn't familiar with their lizard's habits. And if the cage hadn't been free, I wouldn't have a cage styled like this in the first place



It's fun to invest the time in a functional and pretty cage. I've got a bunch of ball pythons I can breeze through in half an hour, but I end up cheerfully spending hours maintaining the big monitor cage.

Thanks!!



~jen
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."

- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)

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