New BP owner

[Andrew666]

Hello, I've recently purchased my first Ball Python about 2 and half weeks ago. He's pretty nice looking seems healthy and happy. He has typical behavior from what I’ve read. He is hidden most of the day and is active at night. He has not eaten yet. The guy who sold him too me owns a reptile store and breeds them, he told me to wait a few days then try to feed him, the snake has refused food since I’ve gotten him. I was told he has only eaten pre killed, which is what I’ve been trying too feed him. I've been writing on another forum and people there have helped me make changes and adjustments to my setup. I have a 20-gallon reptile tank with 2 hot boxes and a under tank heater. The heater is controlled by a reptile temp controller, which I just purchased because of others on forums. I tried using a heat lamp as well but it seemed to make things too hot and dried everything up, the humidity now seems fine. There's a probe thermometer inside the hot hide box, which sits inside but is stuck in through a hole in the back doesn’t touch the ground, it stays at a good temperature in the low 90's usually and the cold side usually says about high 70's to low 80's just from the reading at the top of the cage. The snake seems to prefer the cold box, which concerns me; today I drilled some holes in the top of the hot box to let some air out. The snake went inside and came out usually 10 minutes later with sweat and moisture on him. So I hope that he starts using it. I have two pictures one of my snake and one of the enclosures. I’m only concern right now is if I should be using a heat lamp of some kind to help the air temperature, because if he spends most of his time in the cold box then he will not be getting the heat he needs. Other than that I really don’t want to mix things up too much anymore, I’ve made a lot of changes since I’ve gotten him and feel like I’m stressing him so I’d like to be able to leave him completely alone for over a week and see how he does. So check out my pictures and any suggestions would be appreciated.

--Andrew

http://img182.imageshack.us/my.php?i...pim0160xo3.jpg

http://img182.imageshack.us/my.php?i...pim0161ks5.jpg

[borat1]

Like you said it's probably stress. Sometimes its perfectly fine for a bp to go without eating as long as it's not losing a signifigant amount of weight. I've had the same problem with my bp, i got him and he hasn't ate since (2 months). So just keep an eye out on him, your temps seem perfect.

Watch out for possible signs of Ri's and just keep offering him once a week, but dont keep offering food because than your bp will become use to it and might nowt eat because he thinks he's getting food the next day, so try him in weekly periods and hopefully he shows signs of improvement.

Also try the newspaper trick * crunch of news paper and put it around his tank to make him feel more secure*

[rabernet]

Welcome to the forum! One thing that immediately struck me when looking at the picture of your set-up is the hides. The hides do not look to be small or snug enough, and are especially tall. Ball pythons prefer their hides to be touching them from all sides. Also, are your hides made of wood? I would think that wood would be very hard to disinfect, since it's so porous.

The tank also looks to be a bit big for your little guy - a lot of open space can really stress out a young ball python.

Photobucket is down right now for maintenance, or I would post some pictures of the size enclosure I keep my younger ball pythons in (15 quart tubs) and the type of hides I use for my gang.

[ryandlf]

When I first got my ball I had the toughest time feeding pre-killed. I know there is a lot of controversy on the issue, and i'm not claiming to be a genius when it comes to this stuff, but I just stick with live food. To me its natural, and it actually gets the snake moving around for food. I have not had one incident where the snake didn't grab the mouse by the face so fast the mouse couldn't even react...thats what they were designed to do. Just my opinion.

I also agree with the hides, they don't seem quite right. I'm sure everything is fine though. I remember when I got my snake I was all paranoid about everything...hell sometimes I still am.

Good luck and welcome to this wonderful world.

[frankykeno]

If you're snake is coming out beaded with water from it's warm hide you definitely need to be changing up hides (always try to go with two identical ones). It's not good for your snake to be in a wet hide.

You can grab a couple of plastic bowls from any dollar store (choose a dark color like blue or green), melt/drill an entrance hole in the lid and bingo you have perfectly lovely snake hides that won't trap moisture like that. Here's a picture of one of our 06 babies in her small cereal bowl plastic hide. They love them!

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Hello, I've recently purchased my first Ball Python about 2 and half weeks ago. He's pretty nice looking seems healthy and happy. He has typical behavior from what I’ve read. He is hidden most of the day and is active at night. He has not eaten yet. The guy who sold him too me owns a reptile store and breeds them, he told me to wait a few days then try to feed him, the snake has refused food since I’ve gotten him. I was told he has only eaten pre killed, which is what I’ve been trying too feed him. I've been writing on another forum and people there have helped me make changes and adjustments to my setup. I have a 20-gallon reptile tank with 2 hot boxes and a under tank heater. The heater is controlled by a reptile temp controller, which I just purchased because of others on forums. I tried using a heat lamp as well but it seemed to make things too hot and dried everything up, the humidity now seems fine. There's a probe thermometer inside the hot hide box, which sits inside but is stuck in through a hole in the back doesn’t touch the ground, it stays at a good temperature in the low 90's usually and the cold side usually says about high 70's to low 80's just from the reading at the top of the cage. The snake seems to prefer the cold box, which concerns me; today I drilled some holes in the top of the hot box to let some air out. The snake went inside and came out usually 10 minutes later with sweat and moisture on him. So I hope that he starts using it. I have two pictures one of my snake and one of the enclosures. I’m only concern right now is if I should be using a heat lamp of some kind to help the air temperature, because if he spends most of his time in the cold box then he will not be getting the heat he needs. Other than that I really don’t want to mix things up too much anymore, I’ve made a lot of changes since I’ve gotten him and feel like I’m stressing him so I’d like to be able to leave him completely alone for over a week and see how he does. So check out my pictures and any suggestions would be appreciated.

--Andrew

Well I remember answering your post on the other forum and 2 things that struck me and it was.

The enclosure size compare to your BP and the hides.

The enclosure is too big to many open spaces in my opinion.

The hides are too high, a good hides should be tight so your BP can squeeze in (All the sides of the hides must touch your BP’s body for him to feel secure). Here are some good hides plastic bowls also make great hides.

Now for your temp you MUST measure them at the bottom of the enclosure (Right above the substrate) not at the top. Temps should be 80-84 on the cool side and 90-94 on the warm side.

My advice to you, get a digital thermometer/hydrometer from Walmart or Lowes it will cost you around 13$ it look like this

Add some crumble newspaper for added security.

Once you will provide proper tight hides for security, have less open spaces and provide the proper temps and humidity leave your BP alone for a week and try feeding again.

Keep in mind also to limit your handling until your BP eat for you.

[Andrew666]

Thanks for the advice; I'm going to cut the hides to make them shorter. The only reason I didn’t do that yesterday was because I don’t want to stress the snake out anymore by taking out the hides for 15 minutes. Yes they are wood but there very thin wood and are very soft. You can soak them right through so I think I can clean them if I need too if not I’ll just replace them. There actually meant as flower pots and sell for $1 a piece I bought 6 of them 3 sets of different sizes and just experimented with which fit the best. And I have the other slightly larger ones for when he gets bigger. I'll also do the newspaper thing. And I do have a digital thermometer and the reptile thermostat everyone recommends- you can’t see them in that picture but there mounted on the left side of the tank. I think the temperatures are okay. But he still seems to prefer to hide box on the colder side.

--Andrew

[Sadie]

Most snakes will spend the majority of their time on the cool side, especially during the day. That's nothing to worry about.