Adult snakes and heat pads?

[kala83]

this is only speaking from my perosnal experince with them....and it was a one time deal. But it was enough for me to not really like the things or trust them that much anymore.

basically almost a year ago possibly less lol sorry this last year has seriously been incredibly long and hard on me in a lot of ways so my internal time line is kind of off.

I picked up a young adult ball python that I named Loki, I had heard a lot of people suggest to me that giving him a heating pad was a good idea for him.
I started noticing that his scales had gotten a pink shade to them and I had a friend of mine come over that had owned snakes all his life (so he claimed) and asked about why he had not been eating even after a few weeks of aclimating to the new space.
as well as to the pink-ness of his scales.....the guy told me it was a normal thing.

UMM NOOO NOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! it was the beginning of a thermal burn that he had gotten from the heat pad. If I had known what that was then, and stopped using the thing and just gotten him a heat lamp instead of might have saved his life. But no I listened to the advise of others, and then the burn got worse...i did not know what it really was until I took him into the veterinarian and by that time it was already to far gone.

the poor lil guy ended up not being able to eat due to the injury for three months, and EVERYONE I spoke to told me not to force feed him...even though he had no food in his body and I thought he might need that if anything to help him out with the burn. I had gotten him some topical cream that actually had been starting to work and help him out. He had just gone to long at that point with out food.

that’s why for myself and any snakes I keep I am going to used lamps rather the pads....just don't really trust them