a few questions for the new snake owner

Do you know the weight of your bp?

First, welcome to the site! I think that you'll find that a little over half of the membership here feeds live as well, so no need to apologize for chosing to feed live.

I feed 20 ball pythons a week in their enclosures. The only time I've ever been bitten was by a scared adult who I startled and from very young babies who saw me as a threat, but never because they associated me with food.

If you're in your ball pythons enclosure for regular handling and regular cleaning and maintenance, there's no reason they would make an association with your hand being food. Plus, unless you handled a mouse or rat and didn't wash your hands, you don't smell much like prey! :D

I know some in my crew would absolutely not eat if they were moved to a new enclosure to feed, they do quite well ambushing their prey from the security of their hides, which also protects their bodies.

The only reason she may strike at you is if you smell like rat when you put your hand in the enclouse. Just make sure you wash you hands good if you touch any mice or rats. I feed in the tank all the time and i have never been bit. My bp knows her day to be fed and come out hunting on that day. Other than that she knows im not there to hurt her.

I feed out of tank, and I'm glad I do. while it is certainly impractical for those with racks of snakes in minimalist enclosures, some of us only have a couple in decorated enclosures.

This means its actually more efficient to feed in a small, empty feeding tank than the actual enclosure, since the snake is going to find the prey faster, particularly if it is F/T.

I also don't buy that snakes have no scenery associations - yeah, they're pretty dumb, fair enough, but Frank feeds _very_ regularly without hesitation. I put him in his feeding enclosure, and he gets excited and starts pacing it, looking for a rodent. When I dangle a f/t or throw in a live one, he is already looking around for it and jumps at it in seconds.

Edit: Just to clarify, I put him in this before I have taken out the mouse (with F/T, at this point, the mouse is still in the freezer) so I seriously doubt it has to do with scent.

However, when I used to put it in his enclosure, even if he did find it, there was a lot less of this going on. If it is practical for you to feed out-of-tank, I personally recommend it and truly believe my snakes have developed an understanding / feeding response to being moved to the same external enclosure for feeding.

I fully realize its way faster with a rack system to toss a prey item in each one, going down the line, and don't think this is practical for such a scale of snake keeping (no pun intended.)

My 2 cents.

Jim

quick question this time-i just bought a thermometer/hygrometer and i realized that it's not nearly humid enough in her tank. i started spraying the substrate several times a day, but it seems that every time I look in there, it's down to 10-30% humidity in there. the air in my apartment is adimittedly very dry and i'm sure that has something to do with it. is there anything else i can do to raise the humidity?