Help Please!!!

Thanks for the tips. I would like to have a nice setup for Zues, but the only place I have been looking for stuff is at the pet store and like you said the cost is high. I did not know that Walmart carried stuff like that. Where in Walmart do I look?


My husband whats to build me a cage for my BP out of plywood, how would I go about heating that and what would I use for something that big?

Sounds like your snake is simply one of those BPs who are pretty skittish. I have one of my own that's like that. He was a rescue case a few months ago. I tried feeding him a live mouse (what he had been eating in his prior home) a few weeks after getting him, and he struck defensively, but would not eat.
So I did this: I simply left him alone for about a month, in his cage. I would change his water every few days, but that's it. I gave him a secure hide, something he never had in his other home. I opted to put him in a rubbermaid container; less visible through the sides of it, so less stress for him.
Finally a few days ago I tried putting in a live, small rat and guess what, he took it! I think that like mine, your snake is still settling in and treating everything that's a stimulus, as a threat. I would give him a nice long stretch of time with no handling and little interruption before trying again; this worked for me.

I know it is tough, especially when you have a new pet you're dying to handle, but it really works. I had another BP that was the same way, and he finally ate after weeks of privacy. Nice tight hidedspots do a world of good too, as do proper temps and humidity as described in this site's caresheet section.
Plexiglass works great to put over your screen lid, to retain humidity for shed times. I actually use real glass sheets though, becuz they don't bend, but they are pretty dangerous if you have kids or pets running around.

About your idea to make a plywood cage. I guess my opinion is, you should have a glass bottom so that a heating device under the cage would work. You could not heat through wood like that safely. Plywood has to be sealed with something (polyurethane?) to make it waterproof. I am sure there are people on here who have info about this.

Thanks for the advise, I will try that. I just got the temps in the cage pretty much up to normal today. (Well maybe not normal because I use a dial thermometer, but will be getting a digital tonight). I still have to replace the hide box I have for him right now and I need to get a hide for the cool side.

I highly recommend caging from animal plastics. It pretty much takes all of the trial and error work out of your care for the snake. They retain heat very well, hold humidity rediculously well, and are virtually escape-proof. This will be much easier than building a custom enclosure.

www.animalplastics.com

The Terrestrial T3 model will be perfect for you bp for life. They are dark, warm, and cozy. I've got two set up like this for my duo of bps:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...c/f4ac6468.jpg
**The only reason that there is a lamp on the top cage is because I only had one adapter plug for the thermostat. I now have them both running belly heat 24/7.

I used to have your current setup. A 20 Long with a 50w night bulb will work w/a room temp of ~70 degrees. Pretty simple for a juvi bp. Keeping humidity is kind of a pain tho.......

I went ans looked at them enclosures and they are expensive...:O I got the digital combo thermometer last night. I checked the temps this morning and the hot side is 85 and the cool side is 70. I could not find the reptile heat bulb at walmart so I got a black light that is a 60 watt. Oh yeah, the humididty was 35% :worry:.

just thought i'd add something quick here- i don't know if you're having this problem, but i had gotten a dunlap heating pad from wal-mart a few months ago. the regular, basic model. it wasn't marked on the box as auto-shutoff, but it would cut off after a couple of hours. i think the light on the lo-med-hi switch even stayed on. got another one at target, though, that won't shut itself off. a few dollars cheaper too.

oh, and target has really good prices on rubbermaids too, if anyone cares.

I have one of them UTH that stick to the bottom of the tank. I got it at the pet store, it was kinds expensive, $24.


I got that digital theremometer last Friday and during the day the temps stay where they are suppose to be. Zues even comes out during the day to wrap his self around the water. But at night time the temps fall way down. How do I control that?

I got a dog water bowl for a water/hide for him and he does not go in it he just wraps his self around.

This might sound kind of weird but what does snake poop look like because I think he finally went to the bathroom.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...hedandpoop.jpg
Thats a turd on the bottom. The brown part is poop and the white parts are urates (snake urine, they don't "pee" like us because they are way better at conserving body fluid). Feces and urates generally are expelled together, but I've noticed that my bps drop urates alone at some times, usually soon after a large meal.

and about your night temps....are you turning your heat pad off at night or does your house get very cold?

Proper heating for a bp should be applied 24/7.

Myopia, I know what you mean about the tubs at Target. They are well priced. I have a hude tub, probably 30x15x12(estimating) that Amani is in, made by Iris, very see-through, locking top, and cost me about $15. The bottom is flat too(no ridges/ bumps), which makes my cleaning job much easier.

DraculasGirl, you may even need two heating pads underneath the enclosure, set at different temps, to maintain proper temperatures throughout the night and daytime. Just like Elevate said, the heating pad can stay on 24/7, and if you need supplemental heating to get ambient temps up, a CHE(ceramic heat emitter) might be a better option, as it doesn't emit any light. You can even insulate the tank with some foamboard. You can find huge sheets of it at Home Depot/Lowe's. It is used to insulate houses. It has foam on one side and silver, reflective material on the other. You can cut it in rectangular pieces and tape them to the sides and back of the tank. The foam is white, so if you don't like the look of white, you can get some shelf liner(the patterned sticky paper that you cover the inside of cabinets with) and cover the insulation with it.

I know, I ramble... :) Are you covering the screen lid with anything? Heat escapes very well out of the screen. You may want to cover the entire screen part with some shelf liner/Glad Press N' Seal/Clingwrap and tape, cut triangles at each corner, and cut a hole 1" bigger than the diameter of your lamp. So if your lamp is 6" across, then cut a 7" wide hole. That will give the lamp 1/2" of room from the shelf liner/plastic wrap. No setting the house on fire :-D. No tape on the inside of the enclosure though, alot of accidents happen with tape.

Hope you get everything working correctly. Let us know how it goes.