After many hours on the forums, finally got my first BP!

I've spent the last few weeks planning, researching, and shopping around for my first BP. Yesterday was my (21st) birthday and I decided it was time to give myself a bday present! I had planned on just gathering materials and getting a cage setup, but when I got to petco I took a look at the animals and was surprised to find a very healthy and friendly snake, couldn't pass it up! I was actually ready to talk myself out of it when my girlfriend convinced me to go ahead and get him!

I have his cage all set up, and after some tweaking with the rheostat I have the cage at a perfect 92/83 degree gradient! The humidity is on the high side at 70%, however I live in Alabama and it has been raining every day the last few weeks so there's not too much I can do about that. If it gets any higher I'll take his water bowl out and try to bring the humidity down a bit, but I'm not sure when his last shed was so 70% could end up working out well!

I know you aren't generally supposed to handle them much the first day or two so they can settle in, but this snake has been amazingly friendly and adventurous! At the store he was in a ball in my hand for all of 10 seconds, quickly stretching out and crawling all around my hand. That was one of the main reasons I took him home, he didn't seem scared at all and I could tell he was healthy and strong by how well he was moving around my hand. He has a very strong grip!

While tweaking the temperatures I held him for quite some time. He never balled up, wound up for a strike, or hissed at all! I probably won't handle him too much tomorrow to ensure he doesn't stress out, but he's been crawling around both my hands and his cage since I brought him home so I think he's adjusted just fine!

Here are some pics, I've named him Jake the Snake. Those of you who watched wrestling back in the early 90s will remember that reference ;) Disregard the mess behind his cage, I shoved everything back when setting up his cage and haven't cleaned up yet


http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9...D550/ry%3D400/

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9...D550/ry%3D400/

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9...D550/ry%3D400/

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9...D550/ry%3D400/

Picture taken before tweaking the rehostat and getting a 92/83 temperature gradient
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9...D550/ry%3D400/

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9...D550/ry%3D400/

No hides?

Congrats and good looking snake.But you are going to need hides for your BP.One for the hot spot and one for the cool side.You will prob need to take out the wood logs to make room.If your BP can't hide he will stress big time and prob go off feed.You want them the size your BP can fit into and touch all parts of the hide.Small plastic flower pots do well if needed you can cut them so they won't be to high.
Mike.

The angle on the logs is bad, he can actually curl up and be completely hidden underneath the logs. Tomorrow I will be getting another hide for the other side, rearranging a little bit to make room for it. So far he's been very comfortable moving all around the cage checking it out, hopefully with the second hide on the cool side by the water bowl he'll feel totally at home!

Congratulations! One thing to keep in mind, is that a happy ball python is one that ISN'T cruising their enclosure all the time. Constant roaming is a sign of stress, especially if they won't settle in for most of your daylight hours, so keep an eye on that.

If they're training for the snake Olympics, they're probably stressed.

I'd still recommend keeping handling to a very minimum (ie, not at all) for the first week, while you allow him to get used to his new home.

Congrats!

grats on the bp:)....i second the handling and hide comments:)...Welcome to the addiction!

Grats! Keep us updated.

Nice healthy good looking bp! Congrats!!!

:welcome: Congrats on the snake, as stated before welcome to the addiction. :gj: As for the humidity issue, I would suggest a much smaller bowl. Also if that does not help enough get a small desk type fan pointed in the direction of the cage. This will help lower the humidity greatly. I have my snakes in the basement and it has been raining quite a bit around here lately. So the other day when I checked on the girls the humidity in their tubs was about 86 so I set up a big box fan blowing on their rack and the humidity dropped to 55 in about 30 minutes. :gj:

Congrats on the new snake it looks good.