Quote Originally Posted by Skyrivers View Post
Lets talk about the girl.

Here is what I would do and why.

1. Large water bowl. Higher humidity. Can submerge herself for rehydration. Will help with shed.

2. (some will troll me for this) Get a pillow case that you use and smells like you. Place her in it and sit her in your lap and spend a few minuets every day holding her till she gets use to your smell and being handled. (Not feeding day or the day after) You will get to know each other. Leave the open end of the pillow case open. When you feel her moving around just let her but don't let her get into anything. This is a trust building activity. (I would do this with any new BP or snake for that matter)

3. Inject water in her food if she is eating FT. Will help with hydration.

4. Start tap training them now. You will be happy later you did this.
I appreciate your time to try and give advice, but none of these will matter for this situation in my opinion. I will explain why below. It kind of feels like you haven't been reading the thread, to be honest, based on one of your suggestions.

For #1, there is a fairly substantial bowl for the size of the tub and it holds humidity in the 75-85% range without misting at all. Due to quite a few aquariums, our house has a higher-than-usual humidity and as we enter spring and the rainy season, the house itself sits around 50-55% humidity. The bowl is big enough she could curl up fully in it if she wanted, but I've never had a ball python bother with that voluntarily. If I go any higher in the humidity things will have tons of condensation and the substrate will be wet rather than the air being humid. Also, a bigger bowl would make it impossible to allow her 2 hides in the tub. So, no I will not do this one. When I upgrade her tub, she will definitely get a bigger bowl, but for now... not really something that would fit.

#2 & #4 this is a ball python, not a boa or a retic or anything else. From day 1, she was one of the friendliest and least shy BPs I've seen. She hardly balls up when out of the tub and is as comfortable with handling and me as our adult male we have had for almost 2 years (all this despite giving a few brief soaks at the start that she was not a fan of).

I work with all of my snakes regularly once they're established eaters (minimum of 3 consecutive meals for BPs). Even very shy BPs do just fine by held against the body covered by a hand until they feel like moving or having a flap of a jacket laid over their back, and I do this for any of the shy ones. I'm sure a pillowcase has a similar effect, but this is easier for me to do; shirts, hands, and jackets are just more handy for me. I don't actually have any spare pillowcases I can risk getting peed or pooped on, lol. This girl is far from shy, though I do work with her "brother" that way as he is much more nervous.

Tap training for a docile BP seems excessive and redundant to me and I won't bother with it unless I wind up with a highly food-driven individual that lunges out of the tub every time it opens. This girl is not one of those (none of my 7 are like that, actually). I don't just pick them up, but I don't bother with a hook. I have a hook for my boas, blood, and carpet python, but it is unnecessary for the rest. Lifting the hide and lightly touching a finger to her side so she knows I'm there is more than enough before picking up.

As for #3... I've been clear in many posts that she is eating live fuzzy rats; honestly just kind of confused why you bring up F/T on her. Half the discussion with Bogertophis before was about figuring out a way to add a supplement to a live feeder for her.

She gets live partly to keep her feeding guaranteed due to prior owner feeding live, and partly to help her work her muscles which were very atrophied when I got her. She is nearly at the point where I would be comfortable switching, but due to starting to breed my own rats, I would rather switch her to pre-killed rather than bother with the extra effort on F/T since they will be readily available in about a month. Fuzzy rats are about as harmless as a feeder can be for a ball python, so I'm not too worried about injuries from it right now.

Once again, I really DO appreciate you trying to give advice. I hope I explained well enough why I am not planning to follow it in this case. Some of that advice would have been more helpful when I picked her up back in January, I think.

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