Question on proper handling when bringing home a new snake

More experienced owners who are more able to read the signs of stress in an animal and adjust their husbandry as needed? One week. Newbie owner with no experience handling the animals whose gonna struggle with husbandry? Three weeks.

That's the why. A new young snake with a new owner who wants to poke at it all the time is gonna be STRESSED. The goal is to get them to put the snake down and let it decompress before it starts hunger striking and causing MORE fiddling. New owners often want to be very hands on, showing off the animal, staring at it, etc. All of that -- assuming they happen into an animal with bad nerves -- is a powder keg.

Three weeks with NO handling and only feeding gives the animal the time it needs and hopefully time for the owner to research and change husbandry if needed without compounding possible issues with the stress of handling an animal. That's all.

The health of your new snake going in is as important as the patience you should give letting them acclimate. That is why getting one from a reputable seller/breeder is the greatest advice you can give anyone entering this hobby. Yes, you should wait a few weeks at least before even attempting to handle an adult snake when getting it home for the first time but as far as a hard and fast rule, there really can't be one.

There is a good idea to have someone wait and see how they react but honestly it really depends on the visual queues of the snake. If a ball is overly active and not setting into hides, not eating at all, and is visually stressed when you are near then take more time before even bothering to handle it.

I think telling someone new who has never owned a reptile in their life, let alone a ball python to wait at least two to three weeks so long as they eat at least once during those weeks is not bad as a starting point.

Great info in this thread! I will be a new BP owner soon so I'll chime with my questions in also since this has really insightful posters in it.

We are looking for our first BP - my 6yr old daughter and I. I've owned several snakes but it's been 15 years and two of them were really nippy (albino Burmese and a Brazilian rainbow boa). My other columbian red tail boa was literally puppy dog friendly. So our goal is to get a really cool BP at the upcoming Repticon in 2 weeks. I'd buy from a reputable breeder but I really want to handle the BP. Just hoping to find one that's really calm and easy to handle. We have held several at petsmart and one was so very calm and friendly and the other two were a little nervous and tense. I'll probably stay away from hatchlings tbh. I watched a great Garrick video from RoyalContrictors and he emphasized getting an established feeder as a first BP so that's what we are going to do. Not 100% sure on what size to target..maybe 150g? Is there always the chance of handling a really great snake at a show that's calm and relaxed, bringing it home to a good environment, letting it get settled and it still turning into a very non-handleable BP? Really hoping to get something we can keep and enjoy for a long long time and be able to gently interact with fairly often. If it bites my daughter daily my wife may stab me with a salad fork. My daughter loves the lighter color BP (BEL's especially) so I guess we hoping to find a super sweet BEL, feeding well on B/T BP bigger than 150g for under our budget of $350. Any chance of this happening at a show like Atlanta Repticon?? If not are we better off just going with a really reputable breeder and trying to explain we want the sweetest one he has?

i am a reptile lover and my daughter has taken after her daddy. It took some persistence with her mama to allow it but she finally relented :)