Hey everyone,

I'll try to keep this brief: I brought my very first snake, a baby ball python, home last Sunday 4/2/17. He surprised me with a partial shed on Wednesday night- I found skin scraps Thursday morning. He's got a lot of stuck shed still, on his back and especially tail. I tried to help him loosen it on Friday night by putting him in a container with a tepid wet towel in a warm room for about 20 minutes, but I don't think it helped.

I tried feeding him on Sunday night, and while he was very interested in it (came right over, sniffed it, stared at it, yawned at it a couple times), he didn't actually eat his F/T rat fuzzy. He was eating live rats with the breeder, so I'm not too concerned or surprised, but it'd put my mind at ease if he started eating. I know over-handling him can cause stress and keep him from taking his food, so my question is this: is it OK to try again with the wet towel to help him with his stuck shed this week, or should I leave him alone until he's eating?

As for the help questionnaire, read on:

1. How long have you had your ball python?
Since 4/2/17, so a week and two days as of time of writing.


2. How old (or how big) is your snake?
I weighed him before I put him in his home - he was 93 grams. He was born in 2016, the breeder (Reptile Snack Shack) ballparked him as an October baby.


3. Does it eat on a regular schedule?
He hasn't eaten for me yet, but he was eating live rats regularly with the breeder, as far as I know.


4. How long since its last meal?
He was last fed 3/26/17 according to the breeder, so just over two weeks.


5. What type/size prey is being offered?
I offered a frozen/thawed rat fuzzy at 13g on Sunday (one of the smaller ones in the 25-pack I bought - I figured I should go through the smaller ones first). The Reptile Snack Shack told me he was eating 15-30g fuzzies (which seem too big to me?), live.


6. How often do you offer food?
Just the once so far. I plan on trying again either on Sunday or whenever is a week from when I help him shed, if I do that.


7. What type and size of enclosure does it live in?
He's in a big Sterilite tub- pic below. It's 106qt, so about 20 gallons.


8. What are you using as substrate? If it has depth, how deep is it?
Coconut chips, about 2-3 inches all over, none under the hides.


9. What type of heating do you use?
There's an Ultratherm UTH under the righthand side (11x17", approximately 1/3rd the size of the tub) and a 60watt CHE over top middle of the tank to bring the ambient temperatures up (my room runs around 65F).


10. Do you use a thermostat to control temperatures?
Yes, I'm using a Herpstat Intro on the UTH and a Jumpstart on the CHE. The Jumpstart probe is on the ceiling of the enclosure, near the mesh-covered hole for the CHE. The Herpstat probe is between the tub floor and the UTH.


11. What do you use to measure/monitor temperatures?
I have an Accu-Rite thermometer on the front of the tub on the cool side (you can see it in the pic), with its probe on the wall on the hot side, about 2" above the substrate. I use a laser thermometer to spot-check the surface temperatures.


12. What are the surface and ambient temperatures in the enclosure?
The ambient temperatures are around 77F on the cool side and 81F on the warm side pretty consistently. The hot spot temperature is 90F, the cool side hides are often around 82F inside. The floor of the enclosure and tops of the hides range from 82-86; his climbing stick right under the CHE can get up to 94F (which I'm not super happy with, but he likes the end of the stick on the right side and I don't want to change things TOO much more... I think I've already messed with him enough)


13. What is the average humidity level?
It was about 55% last week before he started to shed; I've been keeping it above 65 (and often above 70-75%) since then. I'm having trouble keeping the humidity up for any length of time-- I know this is a CHE issue, but again, my room is pretty cold most of the time. I've been misting the substrate and mixing it around every day or so, but I'm going to try adding more water dishes.


14. How many and what type of hides does the snake have?
He actually has 4 hides right now - I started with the Reptile Basics black plastic Mediums, but I realized he could probably fit in the Smalls, so I gave him those as well so he could decide for himself (I bought a pair of each when I was setting up). He seems to strongly prefer the Smalls at the moment. I've been putting a damp paper towel on the floor of the larger hides for the last few days to make moist hides he can use if he wants, but he doesn't seem to want to.


15. Is water readily available at all times?
Yep. He has a Medium crock dish from Reptile Basics that I empty and re-fill with filtered water every couple of days. I've had it near the CHE, on the back right, with about 1/3 of it over the edge of the UTH (minimal substrate beneath it) as that puts it right against the side of the medium hot side hide- if that's affecting the evaporation rate to influence the humidity, it's not doing it enough.


16. Does the snake live alone or does it share the enclosure with anything else?
He's by himself in there. He can see me coming and going from my room and staring in at him periodically.


17. How often and for how long is the snake typically handled?
I've only touched him on four occasions since he went into his enclosure- twice when I had to scoot him out of the corner so I could put the hide back down over him (I wanted to make sure I knew where he was the first couple days!), once when I put him in the container with the wet towel, and once for about 5 minutes last night so I could look him over and get a look at how much shed was stuck/how wrinkly he still was/whether there was anything else going on. He hates having the hides taken off him (I don't blame him!) but he's always been fearless when actually being held-- that's why I bought him, specifically, he was the bravest little guy I met at the show.


18. Does the snake have any medical history (old injuries or illnesses)?
None that I'm aware of.


19. Do you have any other reptiles? Have you brought in any new reptiles recently?
My boyfriend brought home his first reptile, a young bearded dragon, the same day that Rigatoni came home. She lives in a different room, though.


20. Is there anything specific or unique about your situation that we should be aware of?
A few notes regarding the enclosure: the walls are Styrofoam with grout, painted and sealed. He likes to scoot along them in the gap between them and the lid- as far as I can tell, he does this every night since Thursday. Sometimes I find tiny scraps of shed up there. If you look carefully in the photo, you can see him sitting on top to the left of the light. When he comes out in the evenings, he's often up there or sitting on top of the large hides - today he was on the top of his climbing branch last I saw. Most days he's asleep in a hide the whole day, although he was looking out along the end of the branch and partially tucked into his small cool hide today.

The light in the photo is an LED bar, usually off - I turn it on when I want to get a better look at what's going on in there.

The luggage straps are to keep him from escaping, and help secure his tub to his wire shelf (the tub footprint is bigger than the shelf). The foam underneath is there because the UTH manual said to, and the part on the left hand side is taped on because I realized that without foam or substrate, light was coming in the floor of the cool hides and probably making him feel unsafe.

He pooped in the travel container on the way home when we got him, and I found urates on the wall (talented boy?) on Thursday.

His name is Rigatoni, and he's a het red fire! I'm not actually that wild about either of those morphs (honestly I struggle to identify them), but he's a cutie and I bought him for his confident personality. Thanks so much for reading this whole thing!