How To Heat Your Leopard Geckos Hide?

I recently received a question about how to heat a leopard gecko’s hide that is directly under the heater. The message reads: “I recently got a leopard gecko placed in a wooden terrarium. For heating, I opted for a ceramic lamp. However, I am noticing a problem. Above the warm den directly under the lamp if I set it to 30-32°C degrees in the den the temperature at ground level remains around 26-27. To bring the temperature in the den to at least 28°C above the den I get to 40°C. How would you advise me to optimize?”

The key thing to remember here is that animals will hide away in holes, burrows and crevices to rest, sometimes hunt, avoid predators, escape extremes in weather and cool down. Caves/crevices are generally cooler and darker than the outside. So, this hide being cooler than 30-32°C is absolutely fine. What I would suggest is making a hide out of slate, the gecko can then opt to hide inside the hide where it is cooler, or they can cryptic bask between the bits of slate, where they can stay warm, without exposing too much of themselves to the UV, or they can lay directly on top, where it’ll be set, using a thermostat, to their optimal basking temperature of 30-32°C. I prefer using slate since it absorbs and stores heat well. Slate can be purchased quite cheaply at garden centres. A local garden centre sells two pieces for £16. I try to find the two biggest pieces and break them into lots of little pieces, making sure no sharp edges are left, which cause harm to the geckos. You can see how I do this by clicking here and watching my leopard gecko tank builds.

I have included a photo below to show how some of my leopard geckos use their slate hides to stay warm, and also obtain vitamin D3 via their UV lamps.