Thank you all for your responses! I appreciate the honesty. I am a new snake owner so I'm always open to criticism and ideas. I was awake most of the first night I bought my ball python, just hoping it wasn't going to die and that I had done things correctly. I'll try to address all your concerns in this reply.

First off, I do know the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. My apologies for getting the words mixed up. It was a brain fart. Is there a way to edit my post to fix this? I'm new to this forum and don't know how.

As for probe placement, I would ordinarily agree that it shouldn't go in the cage. However, having it directly on the heat mat can be misleading. I've noticed a good difference of temperatures between the actual heat pad and the interior of the cage. Because I want the reading to be based on what Casper is actually getting on his underbelly, I placed it inside the cage. To prevent it getting knocked around, I put it under the newspaper substrate under the hiding area. The snake does burrow under the substrate, but it does not go under the hiding area under the substrate. But I'll keep watch in case he does.

Concerning the tape, I may have misled some of you. I don't have tape on the base of the enclosure. The tape that I have on the heat mat is OUTSIDE of the enclosure. The only tape inside is to patch up holes on the hiding area. I don't know why the ball python would feel the need to burrow between the tape and the hiding area. It is in very long strands pulled tight so that IF the snake wants to get under it, it'd have to bite its way through. If someone thinks this will happen, please let me know.

Some of you were concerned about lid security. I have the type of lid that has latches. I've attached a picture of an example of the type of lid I have.

The main new idea that I wanted to bring up in this post was the matter of temperature and that you may not need as much gear as you think to maintain proper temperature. I did not mean to plagiarize from other posts. I'm very new to this forum and haven't read all the posts.

Let me know if there's anything else in this post that you would consider bad advice.

Thanks,
John

- - - Updated - - -

Just saw the most recent reply on probe placement. Will fix.