I'm confused...

I've skimmed through a lot of posts here and it seems like most people are insistent upon a heat lamp along with an UTH. Why? It's not necessary to have a heat lamp and an UTH. Corns inhabit a wide range of temps and they do fine where it's cooler.

I'm just wondering why there's the train of thought that you need a heat lamp? I dont think corns need 85 degrees or even a real gradiant to thrive. I've got mine with just an UTH and have had no problems whatsoever.

Belly heat is more 'natural'. In the wild corns often find a nice, hot stone in the evening to warm up for the hunt. They do sun but that makes them visible and thus vunerable to predators.
Heat lamps make the air warm. Creating a temp cradient from hot to the top till nice on the bottom.

A combination of the 2 is optimal. Though depending on your room temperature. If your room is cold it won't be nice for the snake to only have floor heating.

true you may not have 'problems' not creating a temp cradient. You don't get problems from beeing a bit warm or chilly all the time. However it's nice for the snake to choose the temp that is comfertable for him. It will be beneficial for his health.

I've skimmed through a lot of posts here and it seems like most people are insistent upon a heat lamp along with an UTH. Why? It's not necessary to have a heat lamp and an UTH. Corns inhabit a wide range of temps and they do fine where it's cooler

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Depends on where you live at. For example I live in New England and temps last night dropped to the 20's. I live in a old house which is drafty and the room my snakes are in I had to add an extra space heater.

So I use both UTH and a heat lamp at night to just keep temperatures warm enough they won't start to hibernate on me.

I'm like Krenna. I don't use a heat lamp except in winter when my house temps get so low during the day that my cool side is in the low 60's. I turn it off at night, and they can hang out in the warm side with the uth if they want.

This is a topic that has been discussed a number of times before. Rather than repeating myself, I will post a link to a thread where I said a number of my views on the topic.

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8552&highlight=bask

Although in the thread I talked about using both UTH and basking lights due to the room being used getting too cold at nights, I now have a warmer room and so I only use basking lights to create my thermal gradient. I do have UHT's available for special circumstances, but I rarely use them any more. This of course means that I don't have a thermal gradient at night since the lights go out, but I view this as fairly natural and not a problem.

My opinion to any buyer is that either an UTH or a basking light is fine. The issue of importance is the temperature offered to the snake and if you get this right in a safe manner then your route of achieving the end result is not an issue.

Oops. I get I was a little tired last night when I typed that up.

Correction, I've got no heating whatsoever. No heat lamp and not UTH. While I do live in Florida, it does get cold here at night (surprise surprise). I just keep them at room temperature which is usually in the mid 70's.