Hey everyone

I was a bit of a snake kid back in the day, but had to rehome all my Herps because I left home and did not know where the road was going to take me. Now that the Wife likes snakes and our oldest (8) is getting more responsible we got our first reptile. a "Honey Tessera" we liked the pattern and did not care about genetics.

The first and most important question is heat! the book we got recommends under take heat, but our guy likes to burro. I am afraid under tank heat might lead to burns?

Thanks for any help I will post a picture or two when I can. I am also happy to report that every member of the family is taking an interest in him.

Hi, welcome to the forum! Would love to see some pictures of your honey tessera - that's such a cool morph!

As for heating, your best bet is to hook your heat pad up to a thermostat to control the temperature. Unregulated, they will get a lot hotter than what a corn snake needs. You can get a pretty cheap thermostat that's used for plants, the simple type that turns off and on when it gets too hot or cold.

Also, don't provide heat for the entire underside of the tank. Just a corner or at most half of the surface area. You need to give the snake the opportunity to get off of the heat if it prefers to do that. Bear in mind that your hand is a poor way to determine how hot a surface is as far as a snake is concerned. You are 98.6 degrees (thereabouts), so if it feels warm to your hand it may well be TOO hot for the snake.

Another reason for that arrangement is because thermostats CAN fail, whether it be part of the heating pad, or an add-on. If it fails such that the heat goes full tilt, it could be curtains for the animal. When I bought thermostats, I bought industrial grade ones, but even they aren't fail proof.

Just bear in mind that heat will kill a snake much quicker than cold will.

Hear is a good picture of Jolteon thanks for tips. We love his markings!

Oh, he's a really nice example of a honey tessera! And love the name!