Safe Ball Python Decor?

[mischiefneko]

I know this may seem like a stupid question but what are some good decor items for a ball python. I *JUST* finished moving my 3 year old male from a 20long to a 40 breeder and now it just looks so empty. In the 20long the two hides and bowl took up all the space, now his house is so open and empty.
I like the plants that suction to the side, but I worry of it losing suction, falling and hurting him. So can I get some links to good safe decor for him?

[Sunnieskys]

Mine suction too and fall when he bulldozes them. I swear the first night in his 40 he had a keg party! He moved his hides around, bedding moved completely away from the bottom, plants all over the place and water dish moved away from the wall! I was like "what the heck did you do Odyn"! Everything was everywhere lol plants won't hurt him, he will just move them around.

[mischiefneko]

Mine suction too and fall when he bulldozes them. I swear the first night in his 40 he had a keg party! He moved his hides around, bedding moved completely away from the bottom, plants all over the place and water dish moved away from the wall! I was like "what the heck did you do Odyn"! Everything was everywhere lol plants won't hurt him, he will just move them around.

Yea, Loki is showing early signs of going into shed so I let him soak while I set everything up. Then when I put the whole container in the new tank he was all over the place! Every centimeter had to be checked if it was up to his standard. In his 20long he liked to move decor around, so we'll see if he decides to do it even more with more space lol. Okay, I just know my boy isn't the brightest so I didn't want him to tangle himself onto it, fall and hurt himself. I worry a lot about my reptile babies

[Bogertophis]

I know this may seem like a stupid question but what are some good decor items for a ball python. I *JUST* finished moving my 3 year old male from a 20long to a 40 breeder and now it just looks so empty. In the 20long the two hides and bowl took up all the space, now his house is so open and empty.
I like the plants that suction to the side, but I worry of it losing suction, falling and hurting him. So can I get some links to good safe decor for him?

What I use in most of my cages are several branches cut to fit diagonally (corner bottom to opposite corner top), so they cross each other in the middle. They stay in
place quite well without permanent attachment, & other things can be attached to them. You could attach fake plants, and even snakes that aren't natural gymnasts
climb on them; most of mine are in the rat snake family & climb well, but they all enjoy baskets attached to the branches for another place to hang out "with a view".
(I use a couple pieces of twistable wire to attach things to branches...it's easy to un-do. I wouldn't trust suction cups either, lol.) You can also take pieces of bamboo
branches and zip-tie them together into a wide "ladder" (the same length of the cage) and angle that in the cage so it rests at a slant...again, snakes can weave thru
it to climb, plus you can attach fake plants also for attractive cover.

[dadofsix]

I use pieces of driftwood, large stones, smaller stones, and many different kinds of plastic plants. I use the picture that I use to surround the back and sides of each terrarium as the blueprint of how I will decorate it.

One thing I learned about Royal Pythons is that any placement of plastic plants has to be "mutually agreed upon." Don't worry about where the branches are pointing, because "snakey" will decide which way he or she wants it to bend.

I try to replicate, as best i can, some of the conditions that the snake might be experiencing if it were living wild. Admittedly, I can only go so far. Still it's fun to try.

<><Peace

[Armiyana]

Michael's Arts stores sometimes has some great fake plants that you can use too. My fave so far is a long sprig of fake ivy. My biggest gal loves to hide under it.

Obviously, be careful when selecting. Avoid anything with glitter or wire supports in them. Simple fabric or plastic works best.

They give out the 50% off an item coupons fairly regularly too

[Coluber42]

You can make a nice platform by using a large plastic tub (too big to be a hide) and puttin it upside down with an entrance cut in it (in the side, in the top, both, etc). You can even put another hide inside there. Now you’ve created multiple levels and a variety of tight spaces - around the sides of the large tub, on top of the large tub, in between the inside of the tub and the outside of the hide, and inside the hide. It’s not that pretty, but it offers the snake a lot of different spaces.
There’s also a kind of bendy small animal tube about 4” across you can get on Amazon (from “Ware Manufacturing” I think?) that works great for creating new spaces, things to climb, places to go, etc. My snake uses it as a hide occasionally, too.
You can even use live plants in containers. I suggest wide, shallow containers so they won’t tip. But that will help your humidity as well as giving the snake more things to move against.

Ball pythons like to feel solid objects against the sides of their bodies, so having at least some decor that’s heavy enough or solid enough not to get pushed around is good. Partly that’s because the solid surfaces make them feel secure, but the other reason is that one of their modes of locomotion is that they push loops of their body against objects in their environment. That’s why they’re so good at knocking everything off the table, lol. It is easier and more comfortable for a BP to move around across a surface that resembles a horizontal climbing wall studded with handholds than across a plain flat surface.

Boxes can be good, or a piece of tile or slate that’s propped up by other solid items to make a space underneath, or a broken flower pot, or all sorts of other things. All of these are easily cleaned or replaced.