thats really cool you are doing that as a gift and it seems like you have some good ideas but the main thing is that the cage seems like it would be to big for a ball python even as an adult. I think it would be best to drop the height to about 1 foot and the length to around 2 or maybe 2 1/2 ft because ball pythons like small enclosures and for heat all you would really need is flexwatt for belly heat since they don't climb to much if at all