Hi all! I've been reading posts on this site for months to learn about BP care and husbandry and prepare to get one of my own. Well, after tons of research, I finally got my first baby on Tuesday! He's a June '15 male super pastel lesser, and he's absolutely gorgeous! I'm considering a few names at the moment, but I think I'm going to settle on Basil. I have him set up in a Hefty tub with locking lid, using a UTH with a thermostat, two homemade plastic hide boxes, ceramic water bowl, and some plastic plants for him to sneak around in. Currently sitting at 90 on the hot side, 80 on the cool side, and 75-78 ambient, with 50-65% humidity. I'm planning on feeding him a f/t weaned rat today, then giving him a few days to digest, before trying to handle him on Monday or Tuesday. The prey might be a tad small, but as I haven't weighed him yet I wanted to start smaller and move up next week if need be.

When I first took him out of the bag he was shipped in, he was very puffed up and upset (understandably!), hissed a lot, struck at me a few times, and tagged me once. I've handled ball pythons before but never been struck at, but it was obviously more scary and surprising than it hurt - just the tiniest scratch with just a small drop of blood. Not nearly as bad as I thought a snakebite would be! After I got him set up in his tub he calmed down significantly, made a lap of his new home, then retreated to his warm hide. He's come out at night, and I'll sit next to his tub so he can see me and smell me, and he hasn't made any attempts to strike at me through the tub, or even to hide while I sit next to him. The one time I've opened the tub when he's been out this week he didn't strike, but s'ed up and stared at me while I took temps with my temp gun.

I've been watching tons of videos of how to handle defensive snakes, but I'm still a bit nervous! Also, many of the videos of handling bitey snakes are about babies, but this guy is over a year old so I'm hoping the first day was just him being scared, cold, and stressed out, and not indicative of his personality. Any advice for getting out and handling an older defensive BP without causing him undue stress (or getting bitten)? I'll see how he feeds for me and reassess a couple days from now, but any help would be appreciated! Sorry for the long first post!

Here's Basil!