beardie climbing into his heat lamp

Hi everyone,

Yoshi has recently taken to climbing up into his heat lamp and it's starting to worry me. Whenever my fiance or I see him in there we pull him out and he gets mad at us. It's a 75w Zoomed bulb and doesn't provide enough heat if we put it over the mesh top of his current viv (just got the lumber to build his new one today, waiting on a few more odds and ends before I start) so it's been sitting inside the tank. Is it dangerous if he is crawling up in there? I don't want him to get burned or anything so for now we took out the heat lamp, put it on top of his tank (3/4inch over the mesh sitting on some pieces of wood to keep it from directly touching) and turned on his CHE that's in the same place to try and boost the heat, but it dropped around 20 degrees so far.

I know he'll be alright for a few days if the heat is low, but I'm still worried.

If he can get in contact with it, yes it poses a danger of causing burns. Your best bet is to use a higher wattage bulb and keep it further away. This will both provide a wider beam to bask under and will also allow the bulb to stay at a safe distance. I prefer to keep basking bulbs at least 12'' away from the basking site, well out of reach.