The photo below shows one half of a four foot long cage placed on the floor against an uninsulated exterior wall. For the female ball python in the hide box, conditions on the cage floor under that white heat panel in the ceiling were sufficient to allow her to produce nine fertile eggs this year. The animal on the right, however, obviously felt the need for higher temperatures when she became gravid. The surface temperature of that heat panel is ~165 degrees. The snake wedges her neck in the inch or so between the panel edge and the side of the cage. She extends her head out (she's retracted it here due to my intrusion) and warms it up to ~98 degrees, then lets it fall down against the side of the cage for a while. Note to self: next time she breeds, allow her easier access to the higher temperatures she likes. I could either install a higher wattage panel or supplement with a heat pad under the cage or against the side; or I could stack up some sweater boxes with entrance holes so each animal could nest at a level she chooses. At any rate, she later deposited six fertile eggs. In fact, she was given to me as an egg, but that’s another whole story!
The warm spot in her cage (heating pad) is an 90 degrees, while the cool side is about 83. Well She doesn't like either. So she'll crawl up to the lip of the cage (Vision cage, small lips above the door), and she will sit there for days on end until I decide to move her down, worrying about her getting to cold. The lip of the cage is around 75 degrees or colder, depends on teh time of day (basement... sothe air is kind of chilly.
