Only used gloves with one of ours when we first got him for a time or two. We just used a brand new pair of goat skin leather gloves. (I use these a lot in my line of work, but a used pair would be way contaminated with stuff I don't think ball pythons would like.) I'm pretty sure I will get bit eventually and just decided I will have to learn to deal with it. Now I do plan on using gloves the first time I try to take a clutch of eggs from mama and put them in the incubator as I don't think mama will be happy about that!