are ball pythons dangerous to children.

Ball pythons may get to four feet easily, but in reality, they are not powerful to a healthy person (hell, I might have rheumatoid arthritis real bad, but I can pull both my BPs off me if needed) or child who has good co-ordination (7 years and older is what I'm thinking).

There is a risk of salmonella with reptiles, but you can easily get over this by keeping their cage clean and washing your hands. All animals can bite, but BPs obviously don't very often, and when my male tagged me, it hurt because of how hard he hit, not because of the three little scratches and drop or two I bled; my corn snake of the same length has caused more damage with a bite, and a mouse put scars on my finger (they might be temporary, as those bites were only a month or so ago).

I personally think a cat or dog bite is more likely to become infected, as all the times I've been bitten, the wounds have gotten red and inflamed, same with when our cat had claws. The biggest problem I had with any snake bite was a small amount of blood.

(I still think the Burm was innocent, and was framed--too much doesn't add up, especially the size of the snake).

No, ball pythons aren't going to attack children. I still think it's not bright to put one around your neck, but they are safer than a dog or cat.

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Originally Posted by llovelace

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...ma100_2606.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...si100_2635.jpg

All of my kids were raised with snakes & Pit Bulls.

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Mine will be also nothing better than a pitbull...........Since I have my first snake I'm pretty sure he will be into them also just like daddy LOL....

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Originally Posted by BLMinFL

Tell her that a ball python is not a burmese. From the sounds of it, she is freaked because of what happened to the 2 year old little girl down here who was killed by a burmese. What the news stories don't say is that the snake was not in a secured tank and had not been fed in over 2 months as per my source at the local police department here. Here are the links to the story, the second one has a picture of the snake and you can tell its a little on the thin side. the parents are now being charged with first degree manslaughter according to my source.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...by.html?cat=53

http://stupidcelebrities.net/2009/07...a-hare-photos/

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Man that snake was very skinny.... any animal can be dangerous when owned by and irresponsible Human..... Tell be this all the time about my pitbulls

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Originally Posted by glk832

Man that snake was very skinny.... any animal can be dangerous when owned by and irresponsible Human..... Tell be this all the time about my pitbulls

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you hit it right on the nose...it boils down to irresponsible humans. our first snake was Jax and its my boyfriends 7 year old son's snake. he got it because here in florida, he wanted his son to be educated about snakes (since there are many in the wild) and what ones he could and could not touch. On a further note, my boyfriend's ex is a social worker and has no problem with her son holding snakes at all. :D

Never heard of a ball hurting a child real bad. I figure life gets you one way or another... I am not saying that people shouldnt use safety features in life in general. But Ive been bitten by the neighbors dog few times ... never my snakes...... although my baby gecko bit me once... LOL didnt notice it until I saw her mouth clamped on my finger...

Ball Pythons are as close to harmless as you can get when dealing with an animal that possesses a mouth. ;) Anything with a mouth can bite, the question is how prone are they to doing so and how damaging can it be?

I work in a grooming salon. My arms and hands are covered in scars. I just got a new one a few weeks ago...a Scottie put a canine tooth into my palm to the bone. I have several more scratches and bites that are healing right now, no way to tell yet if they'll scar over...some of the worst bites heal without a scar and some of the most tiny, light scratches scar up the worst.

I also keep a fair number of constrictor snakes. At work, some people know me as "that guy with snakes." :P I'm occasionally called out into the store proper to help with the snakes or to assist a customer who wants information on snakes.

Someone at work once asked if I was afraid of being bitten by my snakes. I laughed at her a little and said no. After some discussion by everyone else on how much it would hurt to be bit by a Ball Python, I declared (and still stand by) this: "I would rather be bitten by EVERY SINGLE SNAKE I OWN than take one bite from an eight week old Cocker Spaniel puppy. Heck I'd rather get bit IN THE FACE by my BIGGEST PYTHON than get bit by a dog. Dog bites actually HURT."

I've since been trying to get my co-workers who fear snakes to get more comfortable with my Balls, with RAGING success. One who was totally phobic will run over and practically grab them out of my hands now...she just LOVES my snakes. And just last night we had a breakthrough with another phobic co-worker...she was having a stressful day and pulled me aside, and asked if I could bring the "big smooshy" one (my Mojave male) in for her to hold, that it would make her day better. This, from someone terrified of snakes just a few months ago!!!

As others have said, your Ball will be more at risk from being hurt by you child than the other way around. ;)

The salmonella risk is really it. And while I wouldn't put a 4 lb. snake in with a 7 lb. baby kind of on principle, it's pretty tough for a 4 lb. snake to kill anything larger than a rat. Even if they were inclined, which ball pythons are really not--when they escape, they generally go looking for good hiding spots, not humans.

Ditto what everybody else says about dropping. Also squeezing.

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Originally Posted by allyfair

one problem she has is that she thinks that if it escapes it will attack and kill my son.

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I've left the tops of my cages off many times to come back to the snakes curled up under there hides sleeping. But you can buy cage clips to hold the tops on anyways.

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Originally Posted by brikimura

I've left the tops of my cages off many times to come back to the snakes curled up under there hides sleeping. But you can buy cage clips to hold the tops on anyways.

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Actually with children involved I'd recommend cage locks...for the safety of the snake, so the kids don't handle it without supervision. :) Safer for the snake!