Preferred heating for racks?

[OhhWatALoser]

I prefer belly heat, due mainly to belly heat aiding in digestion.

but if it's for ball pythons I'd go with belly heat all the way as it is very helpful for their digestion

have you read or studied anything that says or suggests this? so far I've found this just to be an internet rumor

I did find this tho

Do these racks use belly heat or back heat? Which is better?

RBI Plastics Shoebox and Sweaterbox racks come standard with back heat. Which is better? We have found back heat to be every bit as effective, if not more so, than belly heat. The back heat in these racks will easily warm the back 1/3 to 1/2 of the boxes to a cozy 88-90 degrees. Actually it will get hotter than that if you don't use a thermostat or rheostat which is why one is required. The heat tends to be more even than belly heat which is usually in a more concentrated 3"-4" wide strip across the bottom. The heat gradually tapers off to about 80-82 in the front of the box. Our animals very easily thermoregulate with this setup and we have switched over to entirely back heated rack systems here.

Is belly heat bad? We dont think so, we just like this better. If you will be setting up the 32 Qt. Sweater Box Rack in a room that is regularly below 74 degrees you may want to consider the belly heat option. On the Shoe box and MCB-S tubs the back heat will provide great performance in all but the coolest of rooms (below 65 degrees). One note, with belly heat racks you MUST place your thermostat probe on the heat tape itself. NOT inside one of the tubs. On the CB-70 rack we install belly heat standard. The extra long CB-70 makes back heat ineffective. To help give your animals a more even heat and a larger basking area we use two independently wired strips of three inch heat tape (80 watts each) placed about 6 inches in from the back. NO HEAT CABLE is used, only flexwatt heat tape. The heat tape is recessed into the shelves for years of maintenance free use.

Now to the OP I used to use belly heat when I used newspaper as substrate because it was easy, but now that I use cypress I find it harder to control the temps through multiple cages, different amounts of substrate change the temps and the snakes like to move it around. Its not a big deal, but i find back heat just alot easier.

back heat is alot easier with substrate in my experience, substrate won't change the temps, I am currently working on switching all my racks to back heat now. The racks that are back heat, I have not seen any difference in their digestion. They still eat, digest, and crap just like normal lol.