Starting Fresh

Well the male had some bowel movements today that looked projectile. The urates were a little brownish yellow (near the feces) but the rest of the urates were white. The feces was solid and looked healthy. I pulled him out and sat him on my lap while I pulled out the bedding and wiped the steralite down with a lysol wipe. As I was letting it dry I let the male run through my fingers and felt a few 'rough' belly scales in random places. I lifted him up and checked him out and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The scales that were rough were the belly scales meet the sides. Is this normal? I never felt anything like this on the balls I had years ago besides maybe once or twice preshed.

Now that he had defecated on Monday he had been up all night from what I noticed (he was moving around his cage a few hours before I went to bed once the room lights went off), was moving around when I got a call from work at 3AM, and then he was still moving around at 6 this morning. Figured what the hell, I'll grab some frozen rats on my way home to see if they'd eat. Mind you I had not seen the female since I put her in on Saturday afternoon. I checked with a red LED light through the hide hole to make she she didn't get out, but she has since stayed there. I get small rats like the breeders said they were eating and start to defrost one in some warm water once I get home. As the rat's in it's defrost container I move the male over to another Steralite and lock him up. I set the container next to some of the holes and walk away for about 15 mins. After 15 mins, I pull out the bag, open it, dry off the rat and check it's temps with an IR thermometer. The rat's at 98 degrees so I let it cool down a bit and pop the top of the Steralite and wave the rat around by it's scruff. Well what do ya know, he S's up and what happens next? *BAM* I drop the rat... Well F now he's all balled up and scared by the meal that 'attacked' him. I give him a bit to unball and once he does I start the process over again. Wave wave wave, woops slip and it falls from the tongs. I'm thinking "Dammit he got interested again and I messed up again..." Nope, he grabs it as soon as it touches him.

Here are some pics of him:

With his prey (after coiling) -
http://i.imgur.com/czsM1ED.jpg

After he had swallowed and had placed him back in his Steralite -
http://i.imgur.com/5KUWac8.jpg

So now onto the female. I wanted to move her over to the Steralite the male ate in so she could get all worked up with the scent. She had been eating live prior, so this was going to be tricky. I pop open her Steralite, lift her hide and well... Damn... She's deep in shed. Her body is in that ghost phase and her eye caps were white. I ended up placing her hide slowly back on her and popping the non defrosted rat in the freezer for a later attempt. I'll definitely have to get an adult mouse for her. The small rat I got from the petstore was a bit too big for the male, but he worked it in. She will definitely have problems with it being a bit wider then her widest part.

Nice looking snake :) . It's great when they eat their meal up like that. I had several problem feeders that are doing great now. I still get excited though when they eat :) . Too bad you have to wait for the other one, but I'm sure you won't have any problems.

About your other post with the scales... if you don't see anything, I'd just keep note of it and check once in awhile and after his next shed. I've had them rough up a few scales during the shedding process and have them fine before or after the next shed. Maybe others could give better thoughts than that.

Congrats on your pickups!

I have a big apple thermostat too... and I don't use it anymore for the reasons you noted. The temp gauge on the thermostat is inaccurate, you have to play with it to get it to the real temp you want.

The other point I'd make, is that in the past I've had a UTH hooked up to an on/off thermostat and it read very high sometimes. What was happening, as best I could tell, was that the UTH kept heating up even after the thermostat turned the power off, resulting in a temp that was about 8 degrees higher than it was supposed to be. Needless to say, I don't use that UTH any more either.

If you want a more reliable on/off thermostat, try a hydrofarm. I haven't had any issues with mine and the temp reading on it seems more accurate than the big apple. It's not as accurate as a herpstat, but it gets the job done. If you want industrial grade, get a ranco that has been wired for use with a heating device. I have one hooked up to my space heater that heats my reptile room and it works great.

Thanks guys!

Art, I had another mishap with mine this morning which peeved me to a whole new level. I got up at 6 to get ready for work and did my routine red light look of the closed containers to see if either of them are active/have feces (which I doubted but I like to check) and a general check of the temp probes and hygrometers. What did I notice? The tub belly temp probes on the hot sides were reading 101 and 103. The data logging on the probes told me they reached 106 on one... I'm not sure how long this went on, but that's the peak... I was utterly pissed at Big Apple for selling such a crap product and very concerned for my snakes. I quickly pulled the tubs off the heat tape to allow them to cool and didn't want to disturb the snakes more since one just ate and the other is getting deep into shed. I dragged the hides gently to not remove the snakes and with my IR temp gun read the surface temp of where they were sitting and it was at 98. This worried me a bit less, but I knew I had to do something. I ended up going to work late as I had to wait for stores to open and drove around till I found a backup thermostat cutoff, oddly enough I found one for a heater at my local Tractor Supply. I flew home, hooked this up to the thermostat and spent a few hours dialing it in. Now the thermostat is regulated by a more accurate thermocouple to apply/cut power. Since I could not get a thermostat today to fit the bill I figure this will have to work. I got to work, did more research on my down time, and got home to check everything. Right now they are doing fine on temps. I removed the hides for a few minutes just to give a quick once over and didn't notice anything odd. The male seemed upset that I removed his hide while he was digesting (S'd up but no striking) and the female went from a loose coil to a tight ball. I gave them both a quick mist and replaced the hides, and closed them up.

I sent another email to BAS, but I have yet to receive a reply. I would strongly recommend to do any purchases through other sites than BAS.

My goal at this point is to get a rack to hold 4-6 adult tubs (40 quart)/8-12 sub adult (15 quart) and run them with a Herpstat or a VE with backup probes for the "just in case" scenario that I ran into this morning. Luckily the temps I were reading were insulated with a few layers of news paper between the probe. I posted earlier some dimensions of the rack I'm looking for, anyone have an idea where I could find one? It could hold say 4 adult tubs and I'd be fine with that as I can expand later.

Well some good news!

Let me start out with this:
http://i.imgur.com/5CcqVpy.jpg

She had a great shed! I'll be going out to get her a mouse later this afternoon.

On top of that I ordered two Hydrofarm Thermostats. I figured I'd get two incase one fails. For the price I figured I'd try them till the rack is done.

More good news and some frustrating news.

Hydrofarms showed up today! Ordered them yesterday and they got here a day later. Thanks Amazon!

I'm off of work today getting over a head cold and went to get some mice. Got to the store, figured I'd grab two just in case one wasn't enough. Popped the Lesser in the feeding tub and went to go defrost the mouse. When I went to offer it to her, she nailed it!

http://i.imgur.com/GrVfz9Q.jpg

Now the the meh news. Once she uncoiled, she sniffed it and proceeded to ignore it. I left it with her for 10 mins, no interest. I get the forceps back out and wiggle the mouse, she nails it again! But the same after response after she uncoils. Now she's upset and trying to escape as I open the top. I decide I'll just put her back in her home. As I was getting ready to get up and get rid of the mouse, I see the YB with his head out out his hide with the look of "Are you done with that?" I pull him out, pop him in the feeding tub, and he nails it and proceeds with having a snack.

http://i.imgur.com/5aH3JVB.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mtGlE3a.jpg

I don't want to feed him too often, but I figured it was an adult mouse and he had a small rat 3 days prior. I've never heard ball pythons being the gorging type, but I could be wrong.

How long should I be expecting to wait for defecation. Before in my previous balls I didn't worry about it because it happened so regularly.

The lesser has still yet to eat, but I plan on retrying on Thursday or Friday. Since the last time I posted she finally had a name given to her, Sumi!

Not only was the lesser given a name, so was the YB Enchi. He's Kei. Kei's starting his first shed since I've had him. He'd started to darken up late last week once I gave him a soak in a spare Steralite which he seemed to enjoy. Today when I pulled him out to weigh him I noticed his eye caps are bluing. Well I'll be experimenting with him today as it was his scheduled feeding day. Figured I'd see if my guy would be a hungry one during his shed. I'll post more on that later.

As for weights:

Sumi: 146 (down from 172)
Kei: 386 (don't know original weight since I didn't have a weight from the breeder)

As you can guess my scale came in so now I can run weekly weights on these guys for my spreadsheets. I ended up getting a MyWeigh 7001 DX scale from Amazon. It's a great little scale and even has a tub that comes with it that's handy keeping the little ones on there.

I find it kind of fun logging weights, etc.. It was frustrating for awhile when I'd log a couple of my snakes. I have an Albino that didn't eat for several months. I'd see his weight go down bit by bit each time I weighed him (the same thing for a live feeder Spider that I wanted to change over to F/T). I finally got them eating and their weights have steadily went up (and they are both bigger than when they started). I love seeing that :) .

I use pen and paper, but intended to move everything to a spreadsheet. I actually found a cool little app for my Android phone called Reptile Logger DB by Joshua Powell. It's a really great little program for just a couple of dollars. I'm not sure if there's an iOS version or not, but the author is constantly adding things and responds quickly to suggestions or questions. It works perfectly for my needs anyway, and has plenty that I haven't used yet.

I wouldn't worry too much about Sumi yet. The original weight you were given for her could have been right after she ate. I have a little Calico that would strike and not eat that I ended up assist feeding a couple of times. I wouldn't worry about that yet. Just keep on eye on her by looks and her weight and just try again the next time.

Back when I kept snakes before, I learned that you ALWAYS had to move a snake into a feeding container. When I started keeping them again this year, I soon lost that idea. I've been having great luck and no problems feeding them right in their enclosures. You might try that if she gets nervous.