First time BP owners, first week experience

Hey guys, Eric here
Just wanted to post up some info on the current conditions and experience of my first BP setup and behavior. Feel free to post any suggestions or comment! Sorry if this ends up long!

Little history lesson,
This is my first BP setup, but I've owned an albino snow corn snake when I was a kid as my first snake, sadly she passed after 16 years of a pretty good life. After that, I held off on buying another snake and got into fish tanks. BUT NOW I'M BACK!
My girlfriend brought up her fear of snakes one day, but curiously began researching them and she fell in love with the Western Hognose. So at that point, I knew I had to let her experience owning a snake and have her realize they're not so bad. :gj:
I'm not familiar at all with Hognoses at all, so I suggested she should look into BP's and once she gets used to that we can look into a hognose down the road. (She's never even held a snake until now)

That being said, I ordered a baby pastel female from LLLreptile last week.



Current setup:
20 gallon long (Not a tub guy :()
Aspen bedding
60W CHE
75W Blue Night bulb
8W UTH
Screen top
Thermostat controlling UTH
Timer for night bulb cycle

My UTH is on 24 hours (linked to thermostat)
Most of the time I leave my CHE on 24 hours since my A/C gets fairly chilly at night
Night bulb switches on 7:30pm-6am

Humidity:
Humidity hasn't really been a problem keeping it up, it's keeping it down.
It fluctuates around 50%-65% mostly, if it peaks any higher I use my fan to circulate air in the room which has definitely helped keep it from spiking.

Temps:
I currently do not have any digital readings, but I will pick up an affordable temp reader (suggestions?)
cool side during the day sits around 80-84 and 78-82 at night
warm side sits around 86-92 night and day
Don't have an actual reading for my UTH but by feeling the aspen under her hide, it's warm but not uncomfortably too warm to me. Doesn't seem to bother her


Her behavior:
(May need some explanations to some parts here being a first time owner)

So as stated, we have had her exactly one week now.

She is roughly 22 inches long with a nice thickness.

She prefers to sleep under the vine leaves stretched along the back of our tank.

Have not seen her sleep in either of her hides yet, but she does explore them throughout the night and knows they're there.

She sleeps like a baby all day, and non stop explores all night the second her night bulb switches on.

I believe sometimes she even lays in the vines completely off the aspen for a good 10-20 minutes on cool and warm side randomly, then is back on the prowl. (is that her basking?)

I have not caught her drinking water yet, but she has been hopping in and out of her water now and then so she knows it's there.

I noticed she has a little bit of head shake now and then, not the wobble, but she actually nods back and forth slightly when sitting still and breathing. Is this normal?

Feeding:

So we successfully fed her, her first thawed medium mouse 4 days after we got her.
She probably could have taken a large one but just wanted to play it safe.
I moved her to a separate tub for this.
At first she had no interest, so I tried dangling the mouse at the opposite corner of the tub from the edge.
BOOM, she went full alert and snuck up on it like she's been doing it for years.
Was real glad to get her to eat on the first attempt, because I believe she was raised on live mice.

Handling:

I know you should give them a nice chunk of time before handling so they can get used to their new home.
The day we got her, we handled her for about 10 minutes just to check her out and see what condition she was in. She was pretty relaxed, and overall looked very healthy. Little bit of movement, plenty of tongue flicks checking us out.

Since then she was handled a full 24 hours before we tried feeding her(sunday) for about 10 minutes so I could clean out her poop lol.
Fed her, and got her back into her cage for a full 48 hours untouched. Even after a full belly, she's been active every night climbing over everything.

About an hour ago my girlfriend and I decided to hold her for about 20 minutes.
She is very content when I hold her and has a strange curiosity with my ear lobes?
When my girlfriend held her, she seemed to prefer being put down but would calm once I got a hold of her.

My apologies for this being so long, just wanted to make a thorough first post on our new child :D
I will post some pictures of her and her setup when I get a chance

Setup is a little different now though.
Turned the half log to press against the side and hold my thermostat probe and make her feel more secure.
She doesn't sleep in it, but she definitely hangs in it more here and there.

I will probably get her two different matching hides this weekend though.
I'm also going to black out both sides of the tank for a little more security for her.


So here's our baby female Pastel BP, Amani
Pictures don't quite do her justice, she has a nice yellow to her.

http://i58.tinypic.com/v7c9vt.jpghttp://i58.tinypic.com/10e36rt.jpg

super pretty snake! and congrats on your first ball python. You're setup looks really nice and this may be a dumb question but have you thought about using a tub? I'm sure a 20 gallon tank will do her fine for awhile but she will definitely need bigger eventually. the reason i ask is because you went through the effort of blocking off the sides so she would feel more secure, and a sterolite tub is fogged over all around, or maybe on your next tank upgrade go with the vision tanks i believe they are called. they're all plastic but have sliding glass in the front. just a random thought haha. but congrats and hope to see more along the way. i also just got a baby ball python so i am definitely in the learning process still. i have mine in a 28qt tub but i also had a bit of trouble keeping humidity up in the glass tank so that is mainly why i switched.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kalua

super pretty snake! and congrats on your first ball python. You're setup looks really nice and this may be a dumb question but have you thought about using a tub? I'm sure a 20 gallon tank will do her fine for awhile but she will definitely need bigger eventually. the reason i ask is because you went through the effort of blocking off the sides so she would feel more secure, and a sterolite tub is fogged over all around, or maybe on your next tank upgrade go with the vision tanks i believe they are called. they're all plastic but have sliding glass in the front. just a random thought haha. but congrats and hope to see more along the way. i also just got a baby ball python so i am definitely in the learning process still. i have mine in a 28qt tub but i also had a bit of trouble keeping humidity up in the glass tank so that is mainly why i switched.

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Thank you! Yeah we love her.
I thought about tubbing, but I prefer being able to view my animals. People say "they're not fish, they don't belong in tanks." I feel a tank can be setup more realistically to their actual environment than a tub can. Just my preference really, nothing against tubs. If I begin breeding I'll probably switch over to a small rack system though. I will definitely upgrade her tank when she needs it, and surely will look into getting something similar to what you suggested. The 20 gallon long was just a spare we had laying around so we made the best of it!

Thanks again and good luck to ya :gj:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Egromalski

Thank you! Yeah we love her.
I thought about tubbing, but I prefer being able to view my animals. People say "they're not fish, they don't belong in tanks." I feel a tank can be setup more realistically to their actual environment than a tub can. Just my preference really, nothing against tubs. If I begin breeding I'll probably switch over to a small rack system though. I will definitely upgrade her tank when she needs it, and surely will look into getting something similar to what you suggested. The 20 gallon long was just a spare we had laying around so we made the best of it!

Thanks again and good luck to ya :gj:

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I understand completely! The argument to the they aren't fish comment would probably be that fish don't even belong in tanks. They all belong in the wild technically haha. But glass is definitely more eye appealing and also definitely possible to set it up how you need it! I adopted a Normal baby bp and she will probably be my baby no matter how old she gets because she's the first but if you breed yours let me know I will pick a baby up from you!


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