Why waste money on heat lamps?

[bladeblaster]

Personally I go for heat bulbs in every vivarium, the only time I use UTH is with tubs, mostly hatchlings.

Most snakes do NOT need belly heat to aid digestion, this is a myth, and especially true of ball pythons who spend most of their digestion period sat in a tortiose burrow, what the need is good ambient air temperatures.

Logically speaking a Heat Bulb does exactly what the sun does, it heats whats below, the snake can then bask on a warm surface and under a radient heat source, exactly as the would naturally do. Unless the snake lives in an area of high geological activity the chances of heat radiating from below are very slim.

As for screen tops, I will never understand why anyone would use them. All animals need ventilation of course that goes without saying. However a screen top doesn't do a great deal to facilitate this. Heat rises so most air is circulating in the top third of the enclosure, meaning where your snake is the air is fairly stagnent. The best way to provide good ventilation IMO is to have an air vent just above substrate level at the cool end, and near the top of the enclosure at the hot end. This creates an air exchange that circulates the whole enclosure.