Yeah did not work with my western. As for my male eastern I can't get the basking spot over 87 Fahrenheit. Considering both snakes are also education snakes, and get handled A LOT, they are probably both very use to the "stress" because of captivity as you said. Guess I'm still going to have to hunt down a healthy wild specimen then, dang.

Don't get me wrong its fun and all, but the public land here has been so messed up by fire-suppression that its dang near impossible to find any snake, simply because ALL of the ground is ground cover about 3-4 inches deep. Takes forever to find an eastern that isn't out hunting, and southerns only occur around here on restricted areas of Eglin as far as I'm aware.