Quote Originally Posted by Hypnotic Exotic View Post
I just talked to Tracy Barker at the Houston expo and she said something that may make many of these tips irrelevant. She does not provide belly heat at all except for ovulating females. She keeps the ambient at 81 degrees and they are fine. She even said she doesn't have females hitting the "wall" and refuse to keep eating and thinks that's due to them not being kept as hot as most keepers keep them. She does this with both ball pythons and boa constrictors (not sure about her bloods since she didn't mention those). Obviously the absence of Flexwatt or heat cable means there is no more fire risk than what's in the rest of your house unless you have to use space heaters to get it to 81 degees. What's everybody's thoughts on this? Since I can keep my reptile room at 81 degrees without a space heater (it has a window unit that has heat), I think I'm going to try it but I'm going to lower the belly heat slowly rather than just cutting it off abruptly. Tracy's been breeding longer than pretty much anybody so I trust her take on this. She's obviously doing something right.
That's basically what I do with my corn. I keep my room in the lower to mid 80s, since that's comfortable for me. Besides a UTH on one side, my snake has no heat. She stays entirely on the cool side and is active in a proper amount (she comes out in the evening and wanders around a bit before hanging out at the front of the tank). I have absolutely no issues with her. She eats properly, has never gotten sick, etc.

On the topic of fire prevention. Everyone mentions equipment, but rarely what to plug into. Extension cords are obviously something to stay away from. However, if they must be used, use heavy duty cords. Stuff that's designed to take a big load. The same goes for strip bar plugins.