General advice on setup/ nutrition/ first timer tips

Hey everyone,

Just ordered everything online. Should be delivered soon! Very excited for my first BP. I'll purchase the BP when everything is set up perfectly (temp and humidity).

I would like advice on what people put in the water bowl? I've read some people put different nutrients and vitamins n stuff in the water bowl and I'm unsure what to put. Any suggestions would be great.

Here is my set up.
Exo Terra cage 24x18x12 (too big for a baby bp?)
Dual light bulb fixture. Day and night, with automatic on off switch.
Ultratherm uth heater with controller (too much heat with lamp already?)
2 hides, warm and cool
Water bowl
Coconut husk bedding
Two thermometers/hygrometer one for each side. (Also how do you guys keep the humidity at good levels?)
Light stand.
Tongs for feeding

From what I've found this is pretty much everything plus the auto switches that people get.

What product is good for the water bowl? I know bottled spring water, but do people add stuff to it?

Also tips on keeping humidity in?

Does anyone recommend reptilering.com for purchase? I want a cool morph with a low price.

Also is frozen mice typically the way to go?

I know it's a lot but it would be greatly appreciated! If I'm missing something or you have a good tip for a first timer. Please feel free to educate!!!

For water, just give your snake whatever water you drink yourself. Tap water should be fine in most places. Bp nutrition is really simple because they eat whole rodents, which means they everything they need in one furry package. You don't need to add extra vitamins minerals or supplements to the water. If the prey was healthy, it is a balanced diet all by itself.

Your track might be scary for a baby that has only lived in a tiny tub before, but you can make it less so by cluttering it up with extra hides, fake plants, etc, and by covering the back and sides with paper or cardboard to make it less exposed. A baby should be fine in there as long as it has plenty of cover.

How much heat you need will depend on the temperature of your room, so the only way to know is to plug in and find out, then adjust as necessary. You don't need a separate day/night bulb; if there's a window in the room the snake can tell when it's day and night, and will sleep in a hide all day anyway.

For humidity, the first thing to do is cover up as much of the screen lid as you can except for where the light fixture is. If you only use one bulb on one side of the fixture you can cover even more. Aluminum foil works well for that. There will still be enough ventilation, you just want to keep the humidity from escaping quite as fast. After you've done that, see where you are and if you need to do more, such as misting or adding sphagnum moss or a humid hide, etc.

Keep in mind that your needs for heat and humidification may change as the seasons change, and you'll find that out as you go.

Make sure you use a thermostat with your uth, don't put very much substrate over top of it, and make sure that the surface of the glass never gets too hot even if it's covered - sometimes snakes dig down and then get hurt.

Good luck! 😃

Perfect, thank you!

I forgot about making sure the glass doesnt get too hot!

You want to emulate what the breeder does for easy transition and ensuring that the animal eats for you, that means identical setup, SAME prey so if live mouse offer live mouse if live rat offer live rat, switching will not be your priority.

Here is how to get started http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...-hatchling-101

So you recommend feeding outside its enclosure? Live if its been eating live. Frozen if frozen.

Do you think i purchased too much stuff for a hatchling?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deborah

You want to emulate what the breeder does for easy transition and ensuring that the animal eats for you, that means identical setup, SAME prey so if live mouse offer live mouse if live rat offer live rat, switching will not be your priority.

Here is how to get started http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...-hatchling-101

---

So you recommend feeding outside its enclosure? Live if its been eating live. Frozen if frozen.

Do you think i purchased too much stuff for a hatchling?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ptshay

So you recommend feeding outside its enclosure? Live if its been eating live. Frozen if frozen.

Do you think i purchased too much stuff for a hatchling?

---

Never feed outside the enclosure, it can stress the animal and you do not want to move an animal in feeding mode trust me.

Live if live, F/T if F/T yes. If fe live you want to continue for 3 to 5 feeding before switching.

And yes you probably bought too much, enclosure too big so not a great starter, I will guess the thermometer are analogue (which are junk), but it's not unusual, sometimes you just need to forget everything you think you know especially when buying an hatchling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deborah

Never feed outside the enclosure, it can stress the animal and you do not want to move an animal in feeding mode trust me.

Live if live, F/T if F/T yes. If fe live you want to continue for 3 to 5 feeding before switching.

And yes you probably bought too much, enclosure too big so not a great starter, I will guess the thermometer are analogue (which are junk), but it's not unusual, sometimes you just need to forget everything you think you know especially when buying an hatchling.

---

Ah ok ok cool. that was something i heard growing up a lot, but further research has denoted it as a myth.
actually the thermometer/ hygrometer are digital ;-P

So, considering i kinda paid a lot for the cage, should I just make sure to put paper around the corners/ lots of faux flora? the two hides should be good, I just need to make sure they're small enough.
The lights I got were:
Exo Terra Sun-Glo Basking Spot Lamp

Exo Terra Night-Glo Moonlight A19 Lamp


the thermometer is:
Exo Terra Digital Combination Thermometer/Hygrometer



both for the warm side. so you're saying a UTH would be sufficient for both?





thank you again for your help.

It sounds like you really care about your future BP and are trying to do things right, and we all appreciate that here for sure. I started out similarly with an Exo-terra glass cage, dual top lights, etc. and had a hard time getting my first BP to eat and calm down until I moved him into a shoebox tub with nothing but a small hide, water dish, and UTH with a good thermostat. The most expensive thing I ended up buying was a nice thermostat (A Herpstat). The rest cost me about $15 in total and made him much happier than all the other things I had bought. Eventually I got a PVC cage (an Animal Plastics T8) and divided it in half and put my BP on one sided and added another BP to the other side.

My honest advice is to return what you bought if you can. It was more money than you needed to spend on a BP and won't provide them their ideal environment for growing up. If you can't return it, you can certainly make it work, but you need to do a lot of reading in the husbandry forum on how to make a baby BP feel secure. My recommendation is a small plastic tub, UTH, and a decent proportional thermostat. If you want to start out with something nice and that can be a forever home to your BP, take a look at a PVC cage. Lots of info about this in the stickies at the top of the husbandry forum.

Welcome and good luck with your future BP!

Another suggestion, if you like having a tank you can see into instead of a shoe box, is to start out with your baby a shoe box, with the tub inside the tank. Then after a week or two, cut a hole in the lid of the tub and leave it in the tank. Put a hide and a water dish inside the tub, as well as a hide and a water dish and some fake plants and stuff outside the tub as well. That way your baby can get used to the larger space (which it will probably only explore at night when it's sure no one's watching!) But still have its old familiar tub when it wants. You can set up the uth and lights so that they keep the tank where it needs to be, and the tub will be fine. You can even set the tub half over the uth and half not, so that there is an accessible temperature gradient both inside and outside.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coluber42

Another suggestion, if you like having a tank you can see into instead of a shoe box, is to start out with your baby a shoe box, with the tub inside the tank. Then after a week or two, cut a hole in the lid of the tub and leave it in the tank. Put a hide and a water dish inside the tub, as well as a hide and a water dish and some fake plants and stuff outside the tub as well. That way your baby can get used to the larger space (which it will probably only explore at night when it's sure no one's watching!) But still have its old familiar tub when it wants. You can set up the uth and lights so that they keep the tank where it needs to be, and the tub will be fine. You can even set the tub half over the uth and half not, so that there is an accessible temperature gradient both inside and outside.

---

I really want to have it on display is the thing. I dont want to keep him in a shoebox/plastic tub! (that just sounds sad) I wont be breeding, just watching and hanging with the little guy.

If I go with something around 120g is that outside the "baby" ball python range that would be good for something like my set up?

So in your opinion, what should I return? they dont need overhead lighting at all??

They need the heat more than they need the light. Whether you actually need the heat provided by those bulbs depends on the temperature of the room, what other heat source(s) you have, etc. If your room temperature is not at least in the high 70's all the time, you probably need another heat source in addition to the UTH and your lights could provide it. They will still need to be on a dimmer or something so you can control how much heat they give you. The biggest potential problem with overhead lamps is humidity, because they require a lot of open screen and they heat and dry whatever's underneath them. Even that isn't insurmountable, though. There are lots of ways to maintain humidity even with heat lamps. You can't really know how it's going to work out in your particular room though until you set it up and find out. It might require some tweaking to get it right, and then you might have to tweak it some more in a couple of months when the season changes and the conditions in your house change with it.

Ball pythons mostly sleep during the day, and come out to explore at night. They don't *require* lighting, but that doesn't mean it's bad for them either, as long as they have plenty of places to hide from it. In the wild they hide in dark places, but the sunlight is still there if they venture out. You really can keep even a young snake perfectly happy in an enclosure that is not a dark shoebox, as long as it has plenty of cover and places it can go to feel secure. If the snake can get from the cool side to the warm side without being seen, so much the better.

My thought about putting the tub inside the tank wasn't necessarily intended as a permanent housing solution; just a way of easing the transition. So the snake can stay in a familiar tub at first while getting used to the unfamiliar smells of a new place, then can be given the option to come out of the tub into the tank, and finally the tub can be removed completely once the snake seems comfortable hanging out in other parts of the tank or uses other hide(s) regularly. This might take weeks, but that's OK.

I know it's hard to to come to terms with the fact that a BP's really prefer to be completely hidden away and not seen (at least it was for me), but it is the truth. That's not to say there aren't some BPs who are less fearful and more curious and typically as they get older they are more okay with being "on display." The problem with a baby BP is that they are usually extremely easy to stress out and it's often from feeling too exposed or having improper temps, humidity and hiding spots. The best solution to this is a tub. Other methods can work, but I'd really recommend using the tub for the first 3-6 months of having your new BP. This will help get them eating regularly and you'll see that they grow rather quickly this way. The other key for this to work is to not handle them too much. Even my adult BPs don't get handled more than once a day and usually more like a couple times a week. A baby BP should be handled for short periods of time only (like under 10 minutes) and ideally not even daily.

As for what to return, I'd go with everything if possible. As said, overhead lamps tend to kill humidity and make it difficult to control the ambient temperature without a good thermostat (usually on is too hot and off is too cold). If your room temp is stable and you can keep it above 70 degrees, just having a UTH and a thermostat set around 90 degrees on the hotspot will suffice. If you stick with the glass tank, use a substrate that will hold humidity such as Eco-earth, Reptichips, Cypress mulch etc.

Remember, your snake is going to live a long time, so I'd recommend saving your money to buy a nice enclosure that will work for their entire life rather than spending a bunch on a small tank they will grow out of. To give you an idea of cost, my setup is as follows:

Animal Plastics T8 enclosure with divider - $220 (there are many other makers of PVC cages out there as well).
Reptile Basics 40 watt Radiant Heat Panel (I have two - one for each side of the cage) - $70
Herpstat 2 Proportional Thermostat - $200 (a Herpstat 1 will do depending on your setup, is $140)
Accurite Thermometer/Hygrometers - $20 (again, two for mine)
Reptile Basics Hides - $5 each
Water dishes - $5 each

I know, expensive. It can be done for less, certainly, but buying a home that can house your BP for the next 20 years will pay off in the long run. PVC enclosures are also much better at holding in humidity and temp, making them less work in general.

Here's a pic of my setup (an old pic from when I got my second BP and yes, that's a make-shift hide on the right side):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...2015.37.07.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by treaux

I know it's hard to to come to terms with the fact that a BP's really prefer to be completely hidden away and not seen (at least it was for me), but it is the truth. That's not to say there aren't some BPs who are less fearful and more curious and typically as they get older they are more okay with being "on display." The problem with a baby BP is that they are usually extremely easy to stress out and it's often from feeling too exposed or having improper temps, humidity and hiding spots. The best solution to this is a tub. Other methods can work, but I'd really recommend using the tub for the first 3-6 months of having your new BP. This will help get them eating regularly and you'll see that they grow rather quickly this way. The other key for this to work is to not handle them too much. Even my adult BPs don't get handled more than once a day and usually more like a couple times a week. A baby BP should be handled for short periods of time only (like under 10 minutes) and ideally not even daily.

As for what to return, I'd go with everything if possible. As said, overhead lamps tend to kill humidity and make it difficult to control the ambient temperature without a good thermostat (usually on is too hot and off is too cold). If your room temp is stable and you can keep it above 70 degrees, just having a UTH and a thermostat set around 90 degrees on the hotspot will suffice. If you stick with the glass tank, use a substrate that will hold humidity such as Eco-earth, Reptichips, Cypress mulch etc.

Remember, your snake is going to live a long time, so I'd recommend saving your money to buy a nice enclosure that will work for their entire life rather than spending a bunch on a small tank they will grow out of. To give you an idea of cost, my setup is as follows:

Animal Plastics T8 enclosure with divider - $220 (there are many other makers of PVC cages out there as well).
Reptile Basics 40 watt Radiant Heat Panel (I have two - one for each side of the cage) - $70
Herpstat 2 Proportional Thermostat - $200 (a Herpstat 1 will do depending on your setup, is $140)
Accurite Thermometer/Hygrometers - $20 (again, two for mine)
Reptile Basics Hides - $5 each
Water dishes - $5 each

I know, expensive. It can be done for less, certainly, but buying a home that can house your BP for the next 20 years will pay off in the long run. PVC enclosures are also much better at holding in humidity and temp, making them less work in general.

Here's a pic of my setup (an old pic from when I got my second BP and yes, that's a make-shift hide on the right side):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...2015.37.07.jpg

---

Ok ok, so... I like your setup. however i literally just built a bookshelf/ stand to house this dang cage i literally just got.

It is glass with a screen top. so if i got plexiglass custom made to fit the screen top with enough air holes. you guys think that'd work?

and for humidity, what about this? https://www.amazon.com/Exo-Terra-Mon...m+for+reptiles and have it on a pretty low, frequent setting?

i'll be working all day, so i cannot control humidity while gone. and Im not thinking of using the light for "light" per se, but moreso for the heat element. I'm not going to even purchase the bp until all the conditions are perfect. So, with that said, having some like tree in the middle would be a good idea for him to go from cool to warm hides huh?

I would hold off on the humidifier and start with changing the substrate (try cypress mulch) and covering some of the mesh on the top screen.

I did some googling and found this: http://www.neherpetoculture.com/enclosuresacc

You could order those and just place them over the screen to increase humidity. Would be just as easy to go to a glass shop and have them cut it for you out of glass or plexi.

You can certainly make your current cage work :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by treaux

I would hold off on the humidifier and start with changing the substrate (try cypress mulch) and covering some of the mesh on the top screen.

I did some googling and found this: http://www.neherpetoculture.com/enclosuresacc

You could order those and just place them over the screen to increase humidity. Would be just as easy to go to a glass shop and have them cut it for you out of glass or plexi.

You can certainly make your current cage work :)

---

ahhhh! Exactly what i was thinking. and I can drill holes ever for extra ventilation. this is exactly what I've been looking for, i was going to take the top in and get it professionally done but we'll see which is cheaper!

Why do you recommend cypress mulch over coconut husk, both seem to be pretty popular and safe, and hold humidity. the other person on here said aspen bedding... I think If i can get the bottom temp good enough (around that 89-92, and the ambient temp good enough (roughly the same). a spray in the morning and night should be fine with the coconut, yeah?

The only substrate I've used is cypress mulch and that was for my Brazilian Rainbow Boa who needed really high humidity and was living in an Exo-Terra like yours. My BPs just sit on indented kraft paper either in my T8 or rack where humidity is easier to keep.

I liked cypress mulch because you could spray it down and it would hold humidity well, but could go a long time without getting moldy. The coconut husk probably is similar and I've never used aspen, but it seems like it would hold less humidity than the other two.