Greetings from Africa!

[Bundu Boy]

Hi All Greeting from Johannesburg, South Africa

Just joined you here at Ball-Pythons cause yesterday I bought my first BALL PYTHON!!

My partner, Sarah, and I decided to get a snake recently. Sarah is from Ireland and had never seen a snake until she came to South Africa with me 3 years ago, and it was just one month ago that she handled her first Corn snake. Since she found out that snakes are not yuk and slimy she been wanting one for her own.

So we went out yesterday to a local pet store with the intent of acquiring a corn snake. Now I'd already researched corn snakes as well as Ball pythons, and i really would have preferred a BP, but we have 3 cats and Sarah was worried that either the cats would get eaten if a python got out or that the cats would eat the python So the consensus was that we'd get a corn snake.

As fate would have it the store we went to had BP's as well as corn snakes. The attendant first showed us the corn snakes, very nice, but very quick and squirmy. He then showed us the BP's and took one out the enclosure and gave it to Sarah to hold. The little thing casually wrapped itself round her hand and just parked off. For the next 20 minutes Sarah was carrying this BP around the store and then said that this was what she wanted, that the corn snakes were not comparable, she was hooked...

So a wedge of cash later and we are now the proud owner of a 3 month male Ball Python, from what I can tell it is a run of the mill model with no flashy extras, but boy is he a beaut. We've called him Samson.

Right now he is in his enclosure getting used to his surroundings. I'll need to get him out later to add a few extras to his tabk so I'll see if I can get some pics then for y'all.

L8r

Bundu

[FL0OD]

[monk90222]

Welcome to the fourm! We need some pics of Samson!

[Bundu Boy]

Hey thanks for the quick responses, and thanks for the welcome,

I'll get some pics of Samson later on this evening and post them up here.

FYI - Samson is currently about 15", tank size is 15g. Ambient temp in the tank is 80F, I've got a UTH on the left side keeping ground temp at 85F. No temp yet on the right hand side , I'll measure that later. Ambient humidity is 60%. I've got a digital and dial thermometer and a dial hydrometer to keep tabs on the environment.

Medium is a sphagnum moss and mulch mix. I've got 2 hides (one on the left over the UTH and other on the right) and a granite rock water pool which is deep enough for Samson to submerge. I've added 2 silk plants for background and a nice piece of driftwood. I've even added a tropical looking background.

Anything missing. Only thing I can think of is a heat source for basking... how important is this?

[rabernet]

I believe you are our second South African member!

You want your warm side to be about 90 and your cool side to be about 80. Since ball pythons are nocturnal, they don't bask. Sounds like you are off to a good start, you've got a nice small enclosure for Samson and your ambient temps aren't too cool.

Congrats!

[frankykeno]

Welcome to BPNet! Congrats on getting your first BP. They really are a lovely snake (I should think so since I have so darn many of them LOL).

We have a nice caresheet here if you care to have a read through that will help you. As far as a basking area, they really just need a proper temperature gradient and underbelly (undertank) heat works best for these ground dwelling snakes. Normally about a 10 degree difference allows for good thermoregulation for the snake...so a cool end around 80-82 degrees and a warm side about 90-92 degrees works pretty well for our collection. Of course hides which you've mentioned as these are very nocturnal, fairly shy snakes that just love to be smooshed inside a nice dark hide.

As lovely as he is, do let him have a good solid week of no fussing about while he settles in, then offer him a meal of whatever he's used to eating and things should tick along quite nicely.

[Nick144]

dial thermometer and a dial hydrometer

The dial up thermometer and hydrometer are crap, they're alway around 2-20 degrees off. I don't usually hand out advice but I got my butt handed to me because I had the dial up peices of crap myself.

[frankykeno]

Oh btw, Robin (rabernet) and I share a common brain so don't mind if you see us posting basically the same information at about the same time. We've given up being surprised when this happens LOL.

[Bundu Boy]

Hey Raber

Thanks for the advice.

I'll raise the UTH to increase the temp on the warm side. The cool side may be an issue though. I've just measured it at 75F and this will definately get lower as the room temp goes down in the evenings.

How important is it to have the cool side at 80F if Samson feels it is too cold would he not park off somewhere between the 2 sides to get the cooling he needs?

if need be I can get a smaller UTH for the cool side which would hopefully keep the temp up at around 80F.

Also what side of the tank should the water bowl be on? I'm thinking of putting it in the middle of the tank where it would get some heating from the UTH.

[frankykeno]

The dial up thermometer and hydrometer are crap, they're alway around 2-20 degrees off. I don't usually hand out advice but I got my butt handed to me because I had the dial up peices of crap myself.

Nick, I've just gone through every post you've ever made at BPNet. No where is there one where you got your butt handed to you (as you put it) over something to do with a dial thermometer. If I have missed something, please provide me with a link to that thread.

Since you are a relatively new member I will remind you once again, as you've had to be reminded twice now by Moderators, that we do NOT encourage bringing issues from other forums here to BPNet! Neither do we encourage or allow our members to be rude to each other when they give advice on husbandry issues. If this occurred here, please bring it to staff's attention - if it occurred elsewhere, it belongs there.