Questions that need answering!

OK! Im new here so hi everyone first of all!!! I have 2 Ball Pythons at the moment, one normal female (4 months), and I picked up a Pastel male from the White Plains show yesterday. He's soooooo small!! When I got my first she was a decent amount bigger then this guy, and I'm wondering what the best idea is for food. I weighed him on a kind of bad scale but it should be some what accurate, it said 87 grams. My female was able to just start taking mouse hoppers, but I'm not sure if thats a bad idea for babies of this size. He looks like he could probably take one as well, but maybe just a little smaller...? Also, is it possible to put babies in too big of an enclosure, he is in a 28QT bin with aspen, cuz he seems a little freaked out, doesn't seem to like the hides, he's most likely fine, I'm just comparing his behavior to my other one. Also I like to feed my girl every 4 days, is this cool if I do the same with him? Thanks for all your help guys and gals!!:snake:

Right now at this size I would recommend to put him in a 15 quarts tub and feed him a medium size mouse every 5 to 7 days.

At that size he should be able to take down a hopper with no problem. You might want to bump up the prey size for your female. She's prolly ready for something bigger than a hopper.

If he's not using the hides, he's still stressed from his adventure to the show and then to your house. A smaller enclosure would be a good idea, and let him have some calm down time before you try to feed. When he calms down, he'll use the hide. Once he's fully comfortable, you prolly won't be able to get him out of it:)

I agree with slim, 15 qt is a good size the larger tubs are too big. I have some 200 gram balls in a 15 as well and they are very comfortable. It may not eat for a few days because it is a little stressed .As far as food goes, a good rule of thumb is to feed your animal a prey item as thick as your animals thickest point. Hope this helps. I was also at White Plains yesterday picking up a couple of goodies.....

I should take some pics for you guys just so you know what I'm working with...yeah I wanted to bring home so much stuff, but what I realized was I need another job lol. But yeah I felt like that was the problem, cuz I know my girl acclimated pretty quickly, but she again was bigger. I'm gonna either make a video on my youtube account, or take some pics and upload them of the prey I'm feeding my girl and show you the pastel and his size and where he's living. Thanks for all your help!! And btw this forum is awesome everyone seems really cool on here!

maybe what I have aren't hoppers, there seems to be a lot of names for these stupid rodents lol. I guess you could consider them adults...? I'm making that vid, I'll post it tomorrow!

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Originally Posted by dsmalex97

maybe what I have aren't hoppers, there seems to be a lot of names for these stupid rodents lol

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True that! Hoppers are usually around 8-12 grams. Some places sell weanlings at around 12+ grams. An adult mouse looks like, ah, an adult mouse:)

Hey I got pics of my prey size, and pics of my snakes coming, but I'm waiting for my girlfriend to drop the wire off to me to upload them. But I wanted to ask you this in my original message, I have been feeding my girl every 4 days and was wondering if this was ok. She seems to be very willing to take them so I don't think I'm over doing it, and I heard about people feeding every 3 days, but figured 4 days is a better buffer. For example so there are no misunderstandings I fed her 11-25 and I fed her on 11-29. Is that cool?

When they are that young feeding every 4 days is fine...as long as it's not a supersize meal. So, from what it sounds like you are feeding (size wise) every four days is fine.
I like to do two smaller meals twice a week until they are around 200-250 grams or so. Then start spacing it out more. Once a week is also fine.

My girl is actually probably eating adult mice not hoppers, I looked on rodent pro to see what they consider "hoppers" and shes deffinately pounding adults for sure. The females are usually smaller but the males are bigger. Probably close to the 30 gram marker maybe. Also I found a local place that sells rat fuzzies, mouse hoppers, the works so I might just switch her over to rats...hey does anyone happen to know if rats smell just as bad as mice do? Cuz my collection is ever increasing and I'm thinking about breeding down the line, just don't know what to breed...

I'd say one adult mouse every 7 days or 1 hopper every 4 days.
I have mice. Everyone says rats smell less. Personally I don't know. I just have a small colony of mice in my garage. They are kept clean and because they are in the garage my house doesn't smell like mice. works good.

also, I just read one of the caresheets on here and read something kind on concerning. It said 75 or below is unhealthy for ambient temps. My hot side stays at a good 90-92, but cool side stays at about 73 most of the time 75+ on a warm day. I live in upstate NY so it gets kinda cold up here. Should I be concerned?

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...just to give you guys a visual, and I saw an ad for 100% clown hets, now does that mean I will get a clown if I bred 2 100% het for clowns?

it means you have a chance at producing a clown.

a snake that is heterozygous for the clown gene has a 50% chance of giving that gene to any offspring it produces. To produce a clown(homozygous for the clown gene) you need both parents to give the clown gene to the child. Since each heterozygous snake has a 50% chance of giving the clown gene, you have a 1-in-4 chance of getting a clown from each egg.

This does NOT mean that if you have 8 eggs that 2 are guaranteed to be clowns, it just is a probability. You can luck out or get unlucky.

so 50% hets would make 1 and 8 chance?

Hi,

No that's not what 50% het means I'm afraid.

The animal itself is either 100% het or not het at all - but you can't tell just by looking which one is which.

50% het just means that in theory 50% of the offspring from the adults paired would be het for the trait and, since you cant tell which is which, if you just randomly pick one there is a 50% chance you will pick one of the 100% hets.

Does that make sense? :weirdface


dr del

As far as your rats question... rats are not as stinky as mice but they are still stinky. But, if you get the African Soft Furred rats (great for african snakes like ball pythons) then they are not stinky at all. I have ASF rats for pets and they just hang out in their tub on a side table in the family room. I have pet hamsters as well (really stinky!) and I use this PDZ powder on the bottom of the substrate where they usually pee to zap out the stink. You can use it for the mice/rats as well if you don't want the ASF.

ok i don't get the het thing at all....thats confusing stuff. Where do you get ASF's? And do they get as big as normal rats?

He's a cute little pastel :D I got two baby ball's a while back at about that same size (they were only hmm..a month, month and a half old I think) I started them on rat pups, they're perfect! Now they're on to hoppers, makes me more sad cuz these ones look so adorable..:( but anywho! Mice stink like mad, compared to rats. I used to have a gigantic 60+ colony of mice and yea, major stank. I've noticed when I buy rats that it's not so bad, and I only really caught on to the difference when one day I had to buy a large feeder mouse because they didn't have any small rats, and within fifteen minutes of being in my truck, all I could smell is rodent. That was the first time I'd ever smelt anything, and it was the first time I had a mouse in my truck. Nasty lil buggers, but they make up for it by being cute as hell :D

yeah I went to a petshop last night and looked at all their sizes and those hoppers are cute man lol. We ended up getting a mouse fuzzy, I offered it to him just cuz he took a huge poop and wondered if he maybe hungry, but he didn't take it. So I gave it to my other. She made it look so easy cuz shes used to adult mice, she swallowed it in like 3 seconds lol. Yeah I baught a bunch of mice (3female 1 male) to breed but now I'm re-thinking cuz of the smell...whats with these ASF's though? Where do you get them? And whats the difference between them and normal rats?

Also I finally weighed her!! Shes 220 grams, so is that normal size for her age, and is she big enough to be eating the mice I'm feeding her? I was feeding her adult mice every 4 days, but if this is a problem then I won't.

This is the site I found when I looked up ASF's: http://www.sapphiretigress.com/softfurs.htm

Near the bottom it also shows you a list of states, and says if they're illegal in your state or not (they're illegal in mine, Cali) And don't look at the pictures of rats, they're too adorable to be legal in the first place :D

And, I don't know weight-wise how to judge the size of food, I just go by the largest section of their bodies and match that to the size of rats I feed. And I have everyone on a strict feeding schedule, every Friday afternoon. If the mice you are feeding are bigger than the snake's fattest part, they're too big.