New to being a python owner

HI guys, I recently rescued a little Ball Python who had prolapsed twice. I have no clue how old he is, but I've known him since november. I adopted him in february. He is 109 grams. Recently he had an edema on his side and I brought him into the vet but they didnt seem very experienced. When I took him out today to give him his injection for his antibiotics, his skin was super wrinkled and dry looking. He's been shedding and flaking little pieces off when I soaked him. He went a really long time without shedding (a couple of months) because he didnt eat when recovering from the prolapse. He's been refusing food this past week because I'm assuming the meds and shedding.

I have a few major questions:
1. His humidity is a big struggle. It stays at 10% and I dont know what substrate to use to keep it up. He has 3 water dishes in his 20 gallon tank (I know, small for now, but he's so tiny still).
2. Should I be really concerned about this wrinkling? what should I do to fix it?
3. He hasnt gained weight. I feed him 1-2 mice pinkies every 4 or so days. Should I be doing something else?

This is him as of yesterday, his name is Frederick.

http://i.imgur.com/R3Brv2L.jpg

To answer your first question you can mist the cage with water to increase the humidity but for glass tanks I recommend wrapping the screen top with foil. This thread has instructions on how to do it.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...tment-Tutorial

When they are in the shed process they get wrinkly, it's probably also due to how low the humidity has been so we definitely need to get that up. Also don't soak him when he begins his shed process only do so if he's having a bad shed (shedding in pieces). When you soak then before they actually start shedding it washed off the oils in their skin that they need to shed in one piece and it usually results in bad sheds. To remove a bad shed here's a good thread on it.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...hed-No-problem

To answer your last question he is not growing because you are underfeeding him. A mouse pinky is wayyy to small of a meal for any sized ball python. Start feeding him rat pups and he should start growing significantly more than he is now.

This is also a good thread about setting up a glass tank

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...p-w-pics-*DUW*

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

To answer your first question you can mist the cage with water to increase the humidity but for glass tanks I recommend wrapping the screen top with foil. This thread has instructions on how to do it.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...tment-Tutorial

When they are in the shed process they get wrinkly, it's probably also due to how low the humidity has been so we definitely need to get that up. Also don't soak him when he begins his shed process only do so if he's having a bad shed (shedding in pieces). When you soak then before they actually start shedding it washed off the oils in their skin that they need to shed in one piece and it usually results in bad sheds. To remove a bad shed here's a good thread on it.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...hed-No-problem

To answer your last question he is not growing because you are underfeeding him. A mouse pinky is wayyy to small of a meal for any sized ball python. Start feeding him rat pups and he should start growing significantly more than he is now.


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Im feeding him only pinkies because he had the issue with prolapsing. When he ate a mouse fuzzy it caused him to prolapse again so I'm worried if I feed him too big it'll happen again. Also any recommendation for bedding?

Aswell Like he said, Humidity wrap tank! spray 1-2 times a day night and morning, And i suggest using CoCo husk (eco earth) bedding its it extremely absorbent, holds humidity well and unlike aspen it doesnt Mold when its damp for to long, very easy to spot clean aswell! Spot clean and change out every 1-2 months, its very inexpensive so you can throw away and replace aswell! Good luck with your BP

Quote:

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Originally Posted by noctevena

Im feeding him only pinkies because he had the issue with prolapsing. When he ate a mouse fuzzy it caused him to prolapse again so I'm worried if I feed him too big it'll happen again. Also any recommendation for bedding?

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Ohhh ok I can understand that. I don't have any experience with prolapses so I'll have to look up some info on it. Hopefully some people on here that do have more experience with it can chime in and tell you how you can feed your bp without it having the prolapsing issues again. And I agree with the other comment use a substrate that will help with humidity like coco husks, Cyprus mulch, I think there are some others but I can't remember my minds going blank lol. But you can also buy Sphagnum moss, dampen it and place it inside the enclosure and it will help with humidity as well. :) I hope all this info is helpful! Keep us updated on your little guy! He is very very cute 😊


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by noctevena

Im feeding him only pinkies because he had the issue with prolapsing. When he ate a mouse fuzzy it caused him to prolapse again so I'm worried if I feed him too big it'll happen again. Also any recommendation for bedding?

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by prolapse do you mean he regurgitated the meal? if so sorry never heard anyone refer to it that way, but one thing to remember even if there have been several instances of the regurge occuring you can start with a smaller prey item mayber mouse fuzzy or even a small mouse but you will NEED to increase his prey size so that he can continue to get the proper nutrition he needs!BTW good for for taking this snake in and giving it a home good to see still plenty of people out there that care!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cedor

by prolapse do you mean he regurgitated the meal? if so sorry never heard anyone refer to it that way, but one thing to remember even if there have been several instances of the regurge occuring you can start with a smaller prey item mayber mouse fuzzy or even a small mouse but you will NEED to increase his prey size so that he can continue to get the proper nutrition he needs!BTW good for for taking this snake in and giving it a home good to see still plenty of people out there that care!

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No, by prolapse I mean his cloaca and some intestine popped out his vent. The veterinarian had to stitch it up until it healed so it would stay inside. he's never ever regurgitated food and I usually handle him 24 hours after feeding.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cedor

by prolapse do you mean he regurgitated the meal? if so sorry never heard anyone refer to it that way, but one thing to remember even if there have been several instances of the regurge occuring you can start with a smaller prey item mayber mouse fuzzy or even a small mouse but you will NEED to increase his prey size so that he can continue to get the proper nutrition he needs!BTW good for for taking this snake in and giving it a home good to see still plenty of people out there that care!

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This is what prolapsing is.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...apsed-Hemipene!


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Got it sorry just looked prolapse up. Little over a year into keeping and havent experienced that yet sorry to hear about it but I would definitely attempt still to slightly increase prey size

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

This is what prolapsing is.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...apsed-Hemipene!


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Just read this! Lol

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3 water dishes and just 10% humidity?

even if the top is open, thats a bit hard for me to believe. measuring humidity is notoriously difficult, temperature is easy, so while cheap thermometers often do their job just fine, even higher priced hygrometers can be off by large margins. my room never gets below 30% except when its really cold outside and im heating. and thats just me, and a window that is partially open all the time, and some plants. it depends on where you live, the local climate, plants in the room also make a difference, but i am inclined to blame the 10% on a broken hygrometer.

that being said, the humidity is probarbly too low, and restricting air flow by adding some cardboard wrapped in aluminium foil to the top is a good idea. if humidity then doesnt go up immediately but stays at 10%, the hygrometer is broken for sure. misting down with a spray bottle also helps, again, if the hygrometer doesnt respond, its broken.

bump up the size of the food items. two guidelines are: the girth of the food item should match the widest girth of the BP, that means the food item will be larger than the head of the BP. the second one, for young BPs like the one you have, requires something like a kitchen scale that measures in grams. you can get them cheaply, a kitchen scale with a bowl that has a resolution of 1 gram or 2 grams and that goes up to 2000 or 5000 grams is just fine. then, the rule for young BPs is 10-15% of the body weight of the BP every 5-7 days. its not set in stone, but it should give you a general idea. mouse pinkies are too tiny. with your BP at 109 grams, a mouse somewhere between 10 and 20 grams will be fine. thats a young adult mouse. BPs dislocate their lower jaw and stretch their neck for every appropriately sized meal, and the food item is always much bigger than the head of the BP, its normal.

I think he's already recovered from his prolapse. I scanned through the thread and it doesn't have much about feeding during the process. I'll have to do more research on that one. But if he does end up prolapsing again (hopefully not!) but if so there a plenty if threads on the site that will help you with it. I'm going to see if any have any feeding schedules for when their snakes were recovering from the prolapse.


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Also I wanted to ask is he peeing & popping regularly?


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damn, 8 more responses came in while i wrote my first response :D

about the prolapse problem: i dont think small food items will help. when you feed small, they just keep it in and keep condensing it.

so lets say you feed an undersized meal every week, the BP will take it in and condense it, just like a garbage truck with a built-in condenser, and the BP will go every 2 months or so, and it will still be a big pile when it finally happens.

i dont know what can be done, maybe there is some sort of laxative for reptiles, or maybe adding fibers to the diet works somehow, but i dont think cutting down on the diet will help. with mammals its easy: what you put in will come out just a day later. but thats just not true for BPs, they might not poop for months while being fed each week. trying to control what comes out the back end by controlling what goes into the front end just doesnt work. and maybe the hair of the adult mice can be helpful, i dont know.

Another trick to bumping up the humidity is to not only wrap the tank lid with either foil or plastic rap, but also place a damp (not dripping wet) washcloth on the lid and under the foil/wrap. This helps keep up humidity without turning the floor into a wet mess.

Also, how are you heating the enclosure? If you are using only a heat lamp or ceramic heat emitter (CHE), and not an under-tank heater (UTH), that will also dry out the tank. If you end up replacing the lamp or CHE with a UTH make sure you regulate it with a thermostat or you can end up burning your snake, yes the surface gets that hot.

Finally, where are you located? If you're in a hot desert region and/or running the A/C where your house humidity is low, you're also going to have to fight to keep humidity up in a tank.

So I picked him up some coconut fiber and coconut husk substrate, and a squirt bottle. I'm going to change it tonight and make sure humidity stays up.

Also, I've been dying to know. What's it mean when you type 1.0 pythons, .1 king snake, etc. Why the decimal?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by noctevena

So I picked him up some coconut fiber and coconut husk substrate, and a squirt bottle. I'm going to change it tonight and make sure humidity stays up.

Also, I've been dying to know. What's it mean when you type 1.0 pythons, .1 king snake, etc. Why the decimal?

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1.0 = male
0.1 = female
0.1.0 = (the 1 in the middle) means unsexed.


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I just checked it, and its at about 25-30%. There's 3 bowls filled with water. The tank is glass with a screen sliding top. He has a daytime 100 watt zoo-med bulb and a nighttime infrared 100 watt bulb. They alternate heated sides of the tank. Also I have 2 hygrometers and theyre both working because when I spray it goes up. I live in a very, very dry area.

As for the feeding, once again, he was fed fuzzies, then prolapsed, then was fed a fuzzy again, and then prolapsed again. Im worried about feeding him too large of a meal and having it happen again. What size food would you recommend given he is 109 grams?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

3 water dishes and just 10% humidity?

even if the top is open, thats a bit hard for me to believe. measuring humidity is notoriously difficult, temperature is easy, so while cheap thermometers often do their job just fine, even higher priced hygrometers can be off by large margins. my room never gets below 30% except when its really cold outside and im heating. and thats just me, and a window that is partially open all the time, and some plants. it depends on where you live, the local climate, plants in the room also make a difference, but i am inclined to blame the 10% on a broken hygrometer.

that being said, the humidity is probarbly too low, and restricting air flow by adding some cardboard wrapped in aluminium foil to the top is a good idea. if humidity then doesnt go up immediately but stays at 10%, the hygrometer is broken for sure. misting down with a spray bottle also helps, again, if the hygrometer doesnt respond, its broken.

bump up the size of the food items. two guidelines are: the girth of the food item should match the widest girth of the BP, that means the food item will be larger than the head of the BP. the second one, for young BPs like the one you have, requires something like a kitchen scale that measures in grams. you can get them cheaply, a kitchen scale with a bowl that has a resolution of 1 gram or 2 grams and that goes up to 2000 or 5000 grams is just fine. then, the rule for young BPs is 10-15% of the body weight of the BP every 5-7 days. its not set in stone, but it should give you a general idea. mouse pinkies are too tiny. with your BP at 109 grams, a mouse somewhere between 10 and 20 grams will be fine. thats a young adult mouse. BPs dislocate their lower jaw and stretch their neck for every appropriately sized meal, and the food item is always much bigger than the head of the BP, its normal.

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- - - Updated - - -

Oh! Thanks :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

1.0 = male
0.1 = female
0.1.0 = (the 1 in the middle) means unsexed.


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Your welcome :)


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I live in a dry part of California. Im using over the tank 100W bulbs, because I read that under the tank heaters can be very dangerous. If I'm doing over the tank heaters how will I put foil on without burning it? The 2 bulbs cover nearly the entire tank and they switch automatically every 12 hours.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Another trick to bumping up the humidity is to not only wrap the tank lid with either foil or plastic rap, but also place a damp (not dripping wet) washcloth on the lid and under the foil/wrap. This helps keep up humidity without turning the floor into a wet mess.

Also, how are you heating the enclosure? If you are using only a heat lamp or ceramic heat emitter (CHE), and not an under-tank heater (UTH), that will also dry out the tank. If you end up replacing the lamp or CHE with a UTH make sure you regulate it with a thermostat or you can end up burning your snake, yes the surface gets that hot.

Finally, where are you located? If you're in a hot desert region and/or running the A/C where your house humidity is low, you're also going to have to fight to keep humidity up in a tank.

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Not exactly. I rarely see him poop, despite soaking him every day/every other day. And when he does, it's a little whiteish lump surrounded by yellow-brown stuff, which I dont think is normal from what Ive researched. As for peeing, I'm not sure. Ive only see him pee once and thats because he peed on me when I pulled him out of his soaking bin.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

Also I wanted to ask is he peeing & popping regularly?


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by noctevena

Not exactly. I rarely see him poop, despite soaking him every day/every other day. And when he does, it's a little whiteish lump surrounded by yellow-brown stuff, which I dont think is normal from what Ive researched. As for peeing, I'm not sure. Ive only see him pee once and thats because he peed on me when I pulled him out of his soaking bin.

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That white lump is 100% normal its a Urate which is them peeing, Most will not release a full "Wet" soaker pee unless they also defecate!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

1.0 = male
0.1 = female
0.1.0 = (the 1 in the middle) means unsexed.

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that is incorrect. unsexed is 0.0.1 . 0.1.0 means: no male, one female, no unsexed individual. the first two digits are for male and female, the third one is added only for unsexed individuals and only if necessary.

The lights are what is killing your humidity. Try getting a uth that covers 1/3 of the BOTTOM of the tank that way its not touching the foil on top. Then look for a thermostat in your price range, one very affordable thermostat is the hydrofarm thermostat you can order this on amazon for roughly $40. The thermostats are very easy to use with the uth and by cutting out the lights you will save alot of humidity! Also what type of hygrometers are you using are they the stick on the glass hygrometers or digital probed hygrometers

I heard that theyre dangerous though and snakes can get burned. Also, Im using the ones that stick to the glass.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cedor

The lights are what is killing your humidity. Try getting a uth that covers 1/3 of the BOTTOM of the tank that way its not touching the foil on top. Then look for a thermostat in your price range, one very affordable thermostat is the hydrofarm thermostat you can order this on amazon for roughly $40. The thermostats are very easy to use with the uth and by cutting out the lights you will save alot of humidity! Also what type of hygrometers are you using are they the stick on the glass hygrometers or digital probed hygrometers

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by noctevena

I heard that theyre dangerous though and snakes can get burned. Also, Im using the ones that stick to the glass.

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They are dangerous if not regulated by a thermostat also the stick to the glass hygrometers are very inaccurate I recommend buying an accu-rite hygrometer so you can properly check your humidty levels

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

that is incorrect. unsexed is 0.0.1 . 0.1.0 means: no male, one female, no unsexed individual. the first two digits are for male and female, the third one is added only for unsexed individuals and only if necessary.

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Oh. Thanks for the clarification :) don't know where this decimal system came from but it seems like it would just be easier to say male & female then have to explain the numbers to people lol.


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Get an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer with hygrometer....very cheap and much more accurate for your enclosure. You can find them on ebay or walmart online. Also the hydrofarm heater can be found on ebay too. (Actually listed for plants) Good luck.

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Thank you :) Ill check it out

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BrandyL1193

Get an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer with hygrometer....very cheap and much more accurate for your enclosure. You can find them on ebay or walmart online. Also the hydrofarm heater can be found on ebay too. (Actually listed for plants) Good luck.

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Just wanted to let everyone know that Frederick was euthanized tonight. When I went in to check on him his head was sticking out of his hide at a weird angle. I took him out and he was super tense. Within a few minutes his jaw went slack and he curled up and went semi-limp. He still had wrinkles skin and odd red patches on his side where his edema was. I took him to the ER vet where she sedated and then euthanized him humanely. He went really quickly and peacefully.

Oh no!! :'( that makes me so sad. I'm so so very sorry for your loss. You cared for him dearly and loved him until the end. Now he's at peace and no longer has to struggle. Sending lots of love & comfort your way. ❤️


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Sorry for the loss. Did you get a necropsy on him? (Important if you want snakes in the future)

No, I'm going to try to find someone in the biology department at my university with experience in reptiles. In the meantime, he's in my freezer, put together with his bag of ~60 frozen mice to accompany him. :/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CatandDiallo

Sorry for the loss. Did you get a necropsy on him? (Important if you want snakes in the future)

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by noctevena

No, I'm going to try to find someone in the biology department at my university with experience in reptiles. In the meantime, he's in my freezer, put together with his bag of ~60 frozen mice to accompany him. :/

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First, I'm so sorry you lost him.
Second, if you want a necropsy done he needs to be refrigerated, not frozen. Freezing tissue destroys it.