Crow's Intro Thread

Its a normal far as I can tell, but you never know what's hidden. Normals vary a lot.

Our air is pretty humid here too, about the same, but I have fishtanks.

Welcome to the forum. Nice BP. Looks like your doing a great job in getting his husbandry right. Feeding live isn't bad. You will find you will do what you have to do to get them to eat. I have one that started out eating live. I switched him over to frozen. Now he doesn't want frozen anymore he wants live and only a mouse. He doesn't like the smell of rats so it seems. He likes to check out the mouse before he coils it to make sure I haven't slipped a rat in on him :rofl: For me tubs worked out so much better. Easier to clean, take up less space, hold humidity well. Something to think about when he gets older. ReptileBasics.com has some great hides and other supplies. Hope I can say that on here. Keep us posted. Oh! He looks like a Normal to me. A very pretty Normal at that.

You've gotten great advice so far so I won't bore you with more of the same. I just wanted to say welcome to the forum!!! And your intro was one of the most interesting I've read so far too! :D:D

Kaa looks fantastic! I got my Ella at 1.5 yrs old too. Being a female, she was larger than he is at that age. She's 2.5 yrs old now and a whopping 46" long and about 1200 grams!

Welcome again! :gj:

Welcome :) I enjoyed reading your introduction! "oh my god, it's moving" made me laugh. Enjoy your new python.

Welcome to the forum......I don't keep ball pythons but I really enjoyed your intro. Best wishes to you for many, many fun filled moments with your new python.:gj:

Shalom,
Yosef

Ahoy and welcome to the forum - Nice Intro, quite enjoyable. =)

So I had told myself I wasn't going to handle him again until Tuesday, but I gave in. I really should leave him alone until Tuesday, when he get's regularly fed, but he isn't displaying any outward signs of stress, and otherwise just seems annoyed I woke him up. Someone made a comment in another thread about snakes tolerating handling, I can totally see that.

Something I've noticed, his head has gotten noticeably fainter since I've bought him, and one of his eyes has started getting cloudy. I think my higher humidity environment is bringing on a shed, which means I've yet to really see his true color. While handling today though without really going against the grain at all, I got somewhat hung on one of his belly scales a few times. It's not quite hung, but something like passing your hand over a peeling sunburn, and feeling that little piece of skin. Kinda threw me off, but I chalked it up to a beginners nervousness. I'm very steady and calm physically, but mentally I'm going a million miles a minute.

You really should wait about a week before handling your new BP. Boas don't seem to mind being handled right from the get-go, but BP's do tend to stress easily. Even if you didn't notice him stressing, he probably is. I know it's hard to wait, but it's better for him and it'll be worth it in the end.

Their bellys do seem to get very dry when they are nearing a shed. I notice Ella's belly scales starting to lift about 2 weeks or so before she sheds. It's a good tell-tail sign for me. Then her belly gets pink, she starts to look dull, eyes go blue and then clear up a few days later. About 3 days after they clear up, she sheds. It's like clockwork. ;)

Also you most definitely must wait 48 hours after he eats before you handle him. If you were going to wait til Tuesday to handle him 'cause he gets fed on Tuesday, then you actually need to wait til Thursday to handle. All snakes need that time to digest and so they aren't stressed into regurgitating. :gj:

Some more from a few days ago, part of my "I really shouldn't be doing this but he is so cool!" period. Eventually he just curled around my wrist and went to sleep. I got a dirty look when I decided I wanted to move again.

Something they never tell you, they drink like a cat with the flicking tongue and all, was wild. I assumed they drank, but not in the manner that it occurred. I'm laying in bed reading A Dance with Dragons, and I see a neck come poking out of the hide. It's like he was trying to pretend he was a straw, and that all the ground outside the hide was lava. I cracked up, a lot.

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...7-30174933.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...7-30174922.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...7-30175039.jpg

Well a couple things, I don't think he was going to sleep on you. They just sit at stand still quite often.

Other thing, I don't think they drink with their tongue like a cat, as I have seen my bp's put the tip of their nose/mouth into the water and just sit there, almost like they were sucking the water in.

As far as waiting a week, meh. I never do.