I realize what I am seeing with these two hogs lately - they both usually dig down and lay directly on the heat strip when full of food. The kings - they usually sit on top of the bedding over the heat, or dig down but sit on the periphery of the heat. This is for the current conditions.

All of these snakes are in the same model tub over the same heat tape strip on the same controller setting.

When the hogs get a bit larger, I am moving them to a cage with overhead heat via a ceramic emitter and deeper bedding just to see what they do. The only problem I foresee with deeper bedding is that I will need to replace more bedding (more cost), the hogs soiling the cage so fast.