Nobody wants a fire and the best way to avoid that is to use all the safest products and materials available. Plugging heaters directly into the wall is asking for a failure. Even if you don't eventually have a fire, you could easily cook your animals. I could not personally begin to advise someone on how to properly heat their cages if a 100 degree temperature was required to get the cages to the correct temperature. The hottest I ever run my Flexwatt is 95 degrees. This is only for gravid gestating females in cages near the floor. I use only low wattage sub floor Flexwatt heating in all my cages. This is less than half the wattage used in the 11" Flexwatt most people are familiar with and if your heat mats are the same as they were when I tested them five or six years ago, they are also more than double the wattage per square inch. Just way to much wattage for the application requirement. My philosophy is use the lowest wattage heater than will achieve the temperature you desire. That is the sub floor Flexwatt I use. This sub floor heating will only get to about 20-25 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature.
Also a double thermostat system, first developed and offered by Boaphile Plastics I might add, offers a great way to keep thermostats in check. This will work with any brand of thermostat and is especially important for thermostats that have a poor track record. I tossed all my "other" thermostats years ago in favor of the Ranco thermostat which no matter who you get it from, is still the best thermostat on the market.
So double thermostats and low wattage Flexwatt is the only way to go as far as I am concerned. But the proof is really in the pudding. Have you noticed how many pictures you find of babies that are born in cages that use the heating systems I have designed? I have found that running the room at 76 degrees with the low wattage Flexwatt and double thermostats throughout works the best. Large warm spots are more favorable to small "hot" spots. In a 4' x 2' x 11.5" tall cage, I will use a 21" X 12" Low wattage panel at one end of the cage. This provides a nice large warm spot to curl up on if you are gravid.
I used to be surprised when I would hear of someone running heaters of any type without any controls. I have heard of it so many times now that it no longer shocks me like it once did. I think it is incredibly risky and unwise to do so. First and foremost, if you don't want to end up in the newspapers, use some thermostats. I am amazed that some people will spend thousands of dollars on individual animals and little or nothing on proper housing and heating of those animals. The single most important thing you can do for your animals to be successful breeding them is control the heat properly. It's all about heating. By the way, rheostats are not controls. They fail as well. Not as often as the thermostats I tossed in the trash years ago but fail they will. Double up your thermostats and you can sleep at night.
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