I really wish thermostats would be sold in pet stores around where I live, but it's so horribly far from civilization that the best I can hope to find is temperature/humidity gauges- that are entirely inaccurate. In 99% of cases that I see in new owners of royal pythons, corns, milks, kings and even boa species, the new owner is sold all this incorrect information from the pet store and honestly goes home thinking they have things right.
I don't think they mean to harm the animal, but I am not defending the lack of research, either. But again, I wish pet stores wouldn't send new owners off with an UTH, 20 gallon and plastic floor mat treating it as the ultimate care package. When I first bought my wild-type royal, the pet store told me (whom I visited regularly and even trusted) that the UTH was perfect for royals and the 20 gallon would hold in all the humidity needed. They told me the average humidity of a royal should be 75% and the heat 90 F. If I had listened to them, well, I wouldn't have been a very happy camper and neither my animal. But I guess what I am trying to say is that the blissful ignorance of new owners is only encouraged by pet stores (both local and corporate).
Going online and ordering the correct things for an exotic animal and even researching their real requirements is often over many people's heads. I actually had to treat my first belly burn in history today because of a malfunctioned thermostat, which I take complete responsibility over and went through the process to correct. She is now in a sterile, back-heat only, 32q quarantined "happy place" enclosure until it heals up. Had I been a new owner and not have been prepared, I think the first thing I would have done would have been to freak out and then consult the internet. It is because of that over amplified anxiety and lack of background knowledge that I believe we will see the question of belly burn treatment until the end of time. Unless pet stores actively try to sell the right products as well as the right information and new owners look to other forms of research long before the purchase.
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