Handling wild caught BP

So I just purchased 3 female wild caught ball pythons. Two are possibly ringers and one is a granite. Like I said they are wild caught so how often should I handle them for them to get used to handling? Havn't had one strike yet but one of the three is always eyeballing me lol.

I kind of think the ringers are yellowbellies, ill post pics tomorrow!

I would suggest not handling them more often than to keep their enclosures clean... at first. Get them eating good before you handle them on a regular basis. Once they are eating and settled in, treat them like any other ball. I've had many WCs and they do best after they start eating good and are given the chance to calm down a bit.

We have a wild caught sub-Saharan girl and plenty of wild caught gecko species such as Uroplatus. Its stressing enough for them that they are in captivity so I just keep them as wild as possible and don't push them. I only move my animals for cage cleanings, the Uroplatus get a picture taken once or twice a year and that's it. I doubt that youd kill the animal with stress but just empathize a bit with them when you think about handling, this will put you in their frame of thinking.

i doubt that any of you have a wild caught ball python, because first of all they are semi-domesticated in some areas, and secondly there are these thousands of captive hatched or farm bred BP hatchlings that people just love to mislabel as wild caught. people dont catch BPs unless they are females that will soon produce eggs. why would they. its a persistent MYTH that keeps getting repeated, and quite frankly it annoys me whenever i hear it.

in other species, wild caught really exists and puts a burden on the wild population, contributing a lot to drive some of these species into extinction. this is not the case with BPs.

i see no reason to treat them differently. BP breeding has not been going on long enough, and breeders select for morphs and optics and fertility and feeding response, not for character. the fact that the behavior of a BP is mainly influenced by learning and conditioning has to be recognized.

if you never handle them, they never get tame, thats true for locally bred morph BPs as well as for farm bred or captive hatched. treat them the same and get the same results. and please, cut it out, just erase the term "wild-caught BP" from your brains. thousands of years of human interaction and hundreds of years of BPs living in a semi-domesticated state just make that term sound ridiculous, especially when other species are actually wild caught by poachers and trappers. and when politicians decide to crack down on poached and wild caught animals, you dont want to put ball pythons in the crossfire with such a simple mistake.

no special treatment, except that you need to be much more careful in quarantine, and you need to worry more about parasites.

P.S.: one possible explanation for why they are called ROYAL pythons is that there are indications that egyptian pharaos liked to sometimes wear them around their necks as ornaments as early as 3000 years ago.

Thanks everybody! I got them from a friend who buys wild caught balls by the bag from some company in Africa. The company gets them by the bag, each bag contains about 10 snakes and they do not look in the bag they just sell them as is for $200. I've only handled them twice just to switch them from what they were when I got them in to their own tubs and to take pictures of them just now. I tried feeding them yesterday but seeing it was their first day I didnt force them, they showed no interested so I took the rat out and will try again next week. As for bedding right now im using paper towels but will soon be switching to cypress mulch from reptilebasics.com

Heres some pics of them. The ringers are hard to see in the pics but arent much either so once they calm down and get settled in ill take more pics of the ring itself.

Girl #1
http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps2054c16d.jpg

http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/a...psf462471e.jpg

Girl #2
http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps81d60f0e.jpg

http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/a...psa2ad9a73.jpg

Girl #3
http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/a...pse6370a29.jpg

http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/a...psb7145cb8.jpg


And the spots on the granites belly are not mites I made sure of that they are just belly spots

I've never given much thought to it, knowing that other animals in the pet trade are regularly captured for import, but I think Pythonfriend raises some good points that highlight the differences between these animals, and ball pythons.

I have no information to add to the discussion though. Just wanted to say I found the post interesting, and would be interested if anyone had further information about the topic (not to derail the thread though, of course).

They are hardly domesticated. Tameness does not equal domesticated. Even though ball pythons can be captive bred, does not mean they are domesticated. They can hunt, hide, and survive naturally without human aide if you were to release them into their native habitat. The only difference is their outward phenotype, which may or may not be a disadvantage. But you can't deny that morphs are found in the wild. Not to mention there is always constant WC blood being introduced to captive populations. True domestication occurs over many generations and is often quite different(genetically/anatomically/behavior-wise) from their wild ancestors. And WC BPs can be just as tame or nasty as any other CB BP. The point I'm trying to say is that they are not domesticated and tameness does not mean an animal is domesticated.

"If you never handle them, they never get tame". That sure can apply for a lot of other species, but balls are generally docile slugs by nature. I only handle my ball pythons when they need to have a cage clean and it's usually no more than a few minutes. I certainly didn't need to handle them on a regular basis to tame them.


Anyway, OP. Just leave them be. Captive life is stressful for WC animals and they need time to adjust. Otherwise, most just act like the typical BP.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dillonjacob01

Thanks everybody! I got them from a friend who buys wild caught balls by the bag from some company in Africa. The company gets them by the bag, each bag contains about 10 snakes and they do not look in the bag they just sell them as is for $200.

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your friend is not buying wild caught. your friend is buying farm bred and/or captive hatched africa balls.

i wrote it all down just recently for a different thread.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...-thought/page7 its post number 70. just check the thread for post #70 , i included some video evidence. a german breeder (Stefan Broghammer) had the balls and the access to document it all.

what many farmers do is to provide the pythons with a safe hiding place for the day. at night, they go out to hunt for rhodents. every evening they leave, every morning they return. its like a mutual agreement between farmers and pythons. taking gravid females to let them lay in captivity, and taking clutches, is common practise. most hatchlings go right back into the wild. but when a farmer has a rhodent problem, he might buy some and release them. and when a farmer has a money probem, he might sell some. multiply that by 100000, and put in place a cooperative where people bring hatchlings for sale, and where people come to buy them, and where exporters put together large shipments, and you have a basic idea.

the larger cooperatives move hundreds of hatchlings every single day, and they can put together a shipment of several thousand hatchlings easily, on short notice. they supply the big chains, like petco, except that its not just the USA, its global. and all this has no effect on the wild population, because the wild population is enormous. and noone ever goes into the jungle with their machete to hunt one down. farmers have barns and silos, which means rhodents, and they know the places where the BPs stay during the day. and they want their BPs to be there. semi-domesticated. much like cats in a rural area somewhere in the middle of the USA. you kill rhodents, i accomodate you.

then there are also breeding farms for BPs, and professional breeding operations where people work with morphs.

its so much different for so many other species, where there is no huge semi-domesticated population. and poachers and trappers actually go into the wild to hunt them down. you just cannot say "wild-caught BP" and be both serious and informed, it makes no sense. just call them africa import hatchlings. this is also where the really big guys get their dinkers. like for example the first pinstripe, or the first banana / coral glow, or the scaleless head. bamboo is an interesting case, it showed up and didnt move far at all, it went straight to a local breeder, who proved it out and claimed his world first and later sold bamboo hatchlings, at high prices, to you know who. EB Noah in Ghana.

http://www.worldofballpythons.com/bl...visiting-noah/ <--- big, professional, high-end morphs, located within the natural range of the ball python.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dillonjacob01

Thanks everybody! I got them from a friend who buys wild caught balls by the bag from some company in Africa. The company gets them by the bag, each bag contains about 10 snakes and they do not look in the bag they just sell them as is for $200. I've only handled them twice just to switch them from what they were when I got them in to their own tubs and to take pictures of them just now. I tried feeding them yesterday but seeing it was their first day I didnt force them, they showed no interested so I took the rat out and will try again next week. As for bedding right now im using paper towels but will soon be switching to cypress mulch from reptilebasics.com

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Yeah just keep them on some kind of wood substrate for now, they tend to start eating quicker. Use a closed rack if you can. Also, with my girl she still won't touch any normal rat, she is quite scared of them even if they are still blind. But if you toss a ASF in there she will eat 5, 50g ASFs back to back if I let her. She is probably much older then your animals though and they might be easier to switch. I know some importers that are able to switch wild caught and farm raised over to normal rats the first time. Check them for ticks and once they are eating regularly you may want to take them to the vet to see if it would be worth a round of internal parasite medication, of course keep them QTed for now. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to PAM their rack/cages as ticks can actually climb into the cloaca and be shed later only to re-infect the snake.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

its so much different for so many other species, where there is no huge semi-domesticated population. and poachers and trappers actually go into the wild to hunt them down. you just cannot say "wild-caught BP" and be both serious and informed, it makes no sense. just call them africa import hatchlings. this is also where the really big guys get their dinkers. like for example the first pinstripe, or the first banana / coral glow, or the scaleless head. bamboo is an interesting case, it showed up and didnt move far at all, it went straight to a local breeder, who proved it out and claimed his world first and later sold bamboo hatchlings, at high prices, to you know who. EB Noah in Ghana.

http://www.worldofballpythons.com/bl...visiting-noah/ <--- big, professional, high-end morphs, located within the natural range of the ball python.

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There are still a few folks that actually go out to hunt for new localities and mutations but you are right that most animals are farm bred. The farm breeding mostly goes on in agricultural areas of Ghana but like I said there still are animals that are taken from the northern plains and volta basin.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OctagonGecko729

There are still a few folks that actually go out to hunt for new localities and mutations but you are right that most animals are farm bred. The farm breeding mostly goes on in agricultural areas of Ghana but like I said there still are animals that are taken from the northern plains and volta basin.

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so, genuine wild caught? or are these localities located in different barns belonging to different farmers outside Ghana? i am not sure. but i would guess its quite similar, that its still people that just know where the pythons hang out each day every day, and for cash they may just pick them up.

mutations are a matter of chance, why search for hours in the wild and see just a few, when you can check many locations where many of them hide during daytime every day? i am not really convinced.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

and quite frankly it annoys me whenever i hear it.

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Unfortunately, you annoy most of us when you post.

There is domesticated and not domesticated. No semi domesticated you prove to me how ball pythons genetically benefit humans, which they don't. You're thinking of the term taming.


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I noticed the 2nd of the possible ringer girls a shape on the top of her head that looks like a spade. Anybody know if its a marker for a morph or just a cool head pattern on her?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

i doubt that any of you have a wild caught ball python, because first of all they are semi-domesticated in some areas, and secondly there are these thousands of captive hatched or farm bred BP hatchlings that people just love to mislabel as wild caught. people dont catch BPs unless they are females that will soon produce eggs. why would they. its a persistent MYTH that keeps getting repeated, and quite frankly it annoys me whenever i hear it.

in other species, wild caught really exists and puts a burden on the wild population, contributing a lot to drive some of these species into extinction. this is not the case with BPs.

i see no reason to treat them differently. BP breeding has not been going on long enough, and breeders select for morphs and optics and fertility and feeding response, not for character. the fact that the behavior of a BP is mainly influenced by learning and conditioning has to be recognized.

if you never handle them, they never get tame, thats true for locally bred morph BPs as well as for farm bred or captive hatched. treat them the same and get the same results. and please, cut it out, just erase the term "wild-caught BP" from your brains. thousands of years of human interaction and hundreds of years of BPs living in a semi-domesticated state just make that term sound ridiculous, especially when other species are actually wild caught by poachers and trappers. and when politicians decide to crack down on poached and wild caught animals, you dont want to put ball pythons in the crossfire with such a simple mistake.

no special treatment, except that you need to be much more careful in quarantine, and you need to worry more about parasites.

P.S.: one possible explanation for why they are called ROYAL pythons is that there are indications that egyptian pharaos liked to sometimes wear them around their necks as ornaments as early as 3000 years ago.

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True, mainly queen Cleopatra, she like to wear them around her wrists.

To get back on topic, if these are truly straight off the plane then I was advised when making the decision on purchasing an import that the animal should be seen by a vet ASAP, get a fecal done to check for parasites, and expect to have to treat for mites and ticks. QT is also a must, preferably at a different location for six months.

Otherwise, leave them plenty of time to settle in, and only minimal handling until they are eating readily.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kylearmbar

True, mainly queen Cleopatra, she like to wear them around her wrists.

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I'd appreciate it if some one would sit down and substantiate this, and don't come back with "it is said" or a reference to drawings or depictions.

There's depictions of unicorns, and I can tell you that they exist. Doesn't make it so.

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