Expert advice for a new Ball Python owner

[MarkS]

You can get this thermostat http://www.ebay.com/itm/141177127278

A lot of people uses it because is not expensive like the other and it does a relly good job i used it for couple of years with my balls pythons and neer had a problem
And its agfordable

Hydrofarm thermostats are fine and will get you by, I have several, but personally I prefer a proportional thermostat like this one http://www.reptilebasics.com/ve-200 They're more expensive but I think better quality.

In 15 years of breeding ball pythons through several generations and having produced over 1000 hatchlings, not once have I ever used any kind of suppliment for my snakes. I do not believe that it's necessary to suppliment when you feed whole prey items like rodents.

The majority of the hatchlings that I have produced were started off on live hopper mice, then adult mice (live or frozen depending on the individual) then switched to small rats when they were of a sufficient size. While it does happen that certain individuals can become fixated on a certain prey type, it's actually pretty rare in my experience. For those few individuals that refuse rats, I just feed them mice. They are perfectly healthy and trive on an all mouse diet as long as quantities by weight are sufficient. As was said before. 'Feed them what they're willing to eat'

[fLako0aGuiiLaR]

In 15 years of breeding ball pythons through several generations and having produced over 1000 hatchlings, not once have I ever used any kind of suppliment for my snakes. I do not believe that it's necessary to suppliment when you feed whole prey items like rodents.

If you are a breeder im assuming you breed them to sell them
it would be cool if you leave your info for people interested in buying new BP
personally im looking to buy a new baby morph i would like to see yours
and your prices of course

[MarkS]

If I have anything to sell, it would be posted in the want ad section here -> http://ball-pythons.net/forums/forum...tion-or-Wanted which is the only place sales should be posted instead of on the main forums.

[watsmyusernameagain?]

isn't the evidence that ball pythons grow a lot faster and thrive off of rats rather than mice?. obviously feed what the snake will eat. but that's what ive gotten from all my research

[MarkS]

Actually some of the fastest growth rates are acheived by feeding smaller prey items more frequently (the goal being to have them constantly digesting something) I've heard of people getting incredible growth rates feeding mice every other day.

[PitOnTheProwl]

I have a couple that are over 1000g and mousers.
One of my pastel males just took a rat for the first time a couple weeks ago.
I feed what they will eat and as much as they want till I can figure out what they can keep in vs what they paint the walls with.

[rabernet]

I didnt say YOU or BREEDERS cause any problems down the line. Just that the BP may not take rats when adults.... again it depends on the BP owner if they want to feed multiple times a week or not.

I've never had a snake that didn't take rats a adults that started out as mousers. Never. And I've had quite a few. My founding females were raised on mice, because that was what was readily available. All of them converted to rats. A few were a little stubborn, but I was more stubborn. Once they switched, I never had a problem with them staying on rats. Nor have I had a problem switching a ball python started on ASF's or fed ASF's as their primary diet to rats.

If you research online you will come up with multiple cases of educational research in the nutritional aspects of rats and mice. But as I said in my previous post if the BP owner is supplementing their BP then all this nutritional info is worthless as the majority of there BP nutrition is coming from the sups.

If you research online, you won't find any studies on the nutritional requirements of ball pythons. It could very well be that mice are nutritionally sound for the needs of ball pythons, and the additional nutritional values in rats are just overkill, and waste. Just like too much of certain vitamins and minerals can be bad for you. No one can unequivically say that rats are "better" for ball pythons than mice, and no keeper should be made to feel that they are not caring for their animal properly if they feed mice rather than rats.

From a convenience point of view, rats would be more a more efficient way to feed for the keeper than mice (one prey item per feeding vs multiple prey items per feeding). But there's no scientific evidence that rats are "better" for your snake than mice, since no one has done a study on the nutritional requirements (amount of protein, etc) for a ball python (or any other snake that I'm aware of, for that matter).

I'm curious though - what supplements would anyone be giving their ball python, given that we don't know what needs to be supplemented? I certainly don't supplement.