Quote Originally Posted by WhompingWillow View Post
Out of curiosity, what are your ambient (air) temps? A hot spot is important, yes, but so is having a temperature gradient from warm side to cool so that your snake can thermoregulate. Depending on how your enclosure and your room temperatures, a heat pad really may not be enough. You want about 80 degrees on the cool end. And how are you measuring your temps? Apologies if I missed you mentioning that earlier.

As others have said, a range of acceptable hot spot temps is fine. 88-90 is ideal, but 87 - 91/92 won't do any harm. You simply aren't going to "fix" or get a constant hot spot temp with an on/off thermostat (ie, Jumpstart).

The most popular proportional thermostats are probably Herpstats (manufactured by Spyder Robotics) and Vivarium Electronics (made by Reptile Basics). These works by maintaining a constant set temperature.

Different cage types are easier to maintain. You can make pretty much anything work, but it takes some experimenting. As an example, a lot of people dislike glass tanks because of the difficulty maintaining heat and humidity. Ball pythons can definitely thrive in glass enclosures, but you may need to work at it more. Other popular options are tubs, either standalone tubs that are modified or tubs in a rack system. PVC cages are also popular (Animal Plastics, Reptile Basics, Herptastic, Boaphile, etc.) and a lot of people use Radiant Heat Panels as the sole heating element for those (from ProProducts or Reptile Basics).

A final note: It sounds like you are a new keeper. We've all been there. I get being frustrated when it seems like things aren't working how they should be. But your original question was asking why your hot spot has temperature swings. Multiple people explained why in this thread. You've gotten a lot of advice on possible ways to address this and also reassurances that a range in hotspot temps is okay as long as not too hot or too cold.
The room has a heater that I turn on frequently at a set temperature to keep the room from getting too cold. I measure the temps in the cage with an etekcity temp gun. I do understand that it's fine for the heating pad to go down to 87, but it isn't fine when it stays cold in the tank and there's nothing I can do to set it to the desired temperature. My snake went on a feeding strike for a month and one week. This is especially bad given he was only 4 months old when I got him. He had gotten very lethargic and wasn't acting like a ball python should. The third heating pad seemed to work better and for a while it heated it up enough that he started feeling better and has eaten twice. Yes, the heating pad sometimes stays at 88-91 which is what I want but say it was a bit colder and my snake wasn't getting enough heat so I wanted to turn it up a bit. I can't. Obviously, the thermostat needs to be set higher when the probe is directly on the heating pad. There have been times when the thermostat was set up to 99 and the tank never heated up more than 87. The probe heats up super quick and the heating pad is turned off before the heat reaches the tank. Yes, I am a new snake owner. I've never owned any type of reptile before. I've read stuff, watched videos, and all that about setting up heating pads and I've done pretty much exactly what I've seen and read but it just doesn't work for me.