Prospective new owner- lots of questions

[chaa]

Hello, all! I've been reading through this forum for a few weeks every spare minute I've got and have learned a LOT, it's an excellent resource.
I've always been interested in snakes, but due to my mother's fear was unable to procure one in my youth. Thanks to college and a steady job that dream is now a reality! I've been reading care guides, husbandry pages, forums just like this one and all sorts of FAQs to prepare myself for my very first snake.
I currently have a bearded dragon and (here's where the questions start) pet rats.

As stated above, I do keep pet rats. I'm in a dorm situation, single room w/ no option to house my herps separately from my 'fuzzies'. Even worse; all my animals are stored so they are visually available to each other (because of my room design/layout). I will be feeding f/t to my future BP since I honestly can't have two sets of rats, it would kill me to sacrifice one set even though I would be doing it for the good of another one of my pets. with that said,

will housing a BP under/across from live rats be in any way detrimental to the snake or make feeding f/t rodents (even if fed f/t previously) impossible?

would it make the snake more inclined to mistake a handler for a meal because of this?

similarly, would there be any sort of strain placed on either the BP or the bearded dragon by being in the same space (but of course in separate setups, only sharing airspace)? (NOTE: newcomer would be quarantined. Question asked regarding psychological health, NOT parasite transfers etc)

Does anyone happen to know the operating electrical cost for keeping a BP? (odd question, i know)

at what age/length does a BP bite start to cause significant damage to a handler?

what can I expect as far as standard veterinary fees go for a CB ball with no major health concerns?

and lastly (and certainly most opinion-based), which is better? a male or female BP?

again, thanks so much for any responses! I really want to do all my research well before my little beauty comes home. I'm a fan of being an educated pet owner in advance. After working a few years in a no-live-sale pet store I've seen way too many huge mistakes to go about making hasty decisions, that's for sure!

Best wishes,
Chris

[Rapture]

Hey Chris, great to see you're interested in adding a ball python to the mix. I'll attempt to answer all of your questions to the best of my knowlege.

In my experience, there is not a problem keeping snakes and rodents in the same room. I do this with my snakes and haven't noticed anything crazy happen.

I think it actually could have some advantages if you are planning on feeding F/T. Firstly, you could pre-scent the room by scheduling your snake to eat on the same day you clean your rats' cage(s). A lot of times this will stir up some extra rat smell, and it's possible your snake will notice. If I were you, I would thaw out your feeder rat, go clean your rat cage, then try to feed your snake. Another thing you could do with the frozen rat is add some extra rat scent to it by putting it in a sealed container of used rat bedding.

As far as I know, there won't be any psychological problems with having a beardie and a ball in the same room in sight of each other. The ball will most likely be spending most of his day hiding, saving exploring for night time while your beardie is dozing. I also used to have an adult beardie in a room with many snakes with no apparent ill effects.

The electricity needed to keep a ball python should be very low, depending on what kind of set up you would like to have. Using a thermostat (which is strongly recommended anyway) will further reduce electricity usage.

Even adult ball pythons usually only cause minimal damage if one happens to tag you. It is when and if a snake actually holds on and coils after it has struck you that any really painful damage could occur. This has never happened to me or anyone I know, so I'm not sure to what extent of damage it would really cause. I have however been bitten and coiled on by a baby Burmese python, and that was quite painful and left a lot of bruising, but nothing serious.

You can expect to take an otherwise apparently healthy pet ball python to the vet for a yearly physical exam and yearly fecal exam. Exam prices vary from vet to vet, but I would "guesstimate" somewhere between $40 and $70 for a physical exam. With the right set up, your snake should stay healthy, but respiritory infections are not uncommon.

As far as male or female, I don't notice much of a difference between the two... if you think you would ever plan on breeding I'd go for a female first.

[chaa]

Thanks for your reply, rapture!
You've given me a lot of information.

I actually didn't consider that keeping live rats would be more of a benefit! now that you mention it I can see it making f/t feeding a lot easier.
and good call on the reversed schedules, too... even though I knew BPs were nocturnal it didn't occur to me for some reason that their active times would be offset.

I'll be moving back to chicago in a month or so, I'll have to check and see if my new herp/exotics vet has any sort of discount for seeing multiple animals at a time. I assume that snakes should have a similar fecal check schedule to BD's, every six for the first two years and then once a year in adulthood?

thanks again for your help! You've really eased my mind about the housing situation. Best wishes.

[Rapture]

Chris,

As far as I know most captive bred ball pythons from reputable sources should not have any significant problems from internal parasites. I believe beardies get them from some of the insects they eat if I am not mistaken. From what I understand once a year fecal exams are sufficient, or if you notice that your ball has a growth rate that is much slower than normal even though it is a great eater, or if you notice any kind of diarrhea or otherwise abnormal stool.

Captive hatched animals are another story. Responsible dealers of captive hatched or wild collected animals will deworm the animals before selling them.

You may also discuss this with your qualified herp vet and see what their experiences are in this matter.

[Beardedragon]

Im going to chime in on keeping your beardie in the same room as your ball python, depending on the beardie, a few things could happen.

1.) Your beardie will always puff up when he sees it and go black beard

2.) your beardie will try to eat your ball python( Meaning when you have him out your BD will follow you through its cage)

3.) nothing will happen.

I had a beardie that did 1 and 2 But the ball didn't seem to stress my beardie out because like rapture said they have opposite sleeping schedules and that makes life a lot easier.

Also, I have been latched onto and constricted by my 600 gram spider on my wrist, she was not an adult but its bigger than a baby. I unrapped her and waited for her to unbite. It did not hurt to be constricted or bit( much) but it was the shock that got to me!

[frankykeno]

Hello, all! I've been reading through this forum for a few weeks every spare minute I've got and have learned a LOT, it's an excellent resource.
I've always been interested in snakes, but due to my mother's fear was unable to procure one in my youth. Thanks to college and a steady job that dream is now a reality! I've been reading care guides, husbandry pages, forums just like this one and all sorts of FAQs to prepare myself for my very first snake.
I currently have a bearded dragon and (here's where the questions start) pet rats.

Welcome to BPNet Chris. It's wonderful to see someone doing their research first. Always a benefit to you and to your future snake.

As stated above, I do keep pet rats. I'm in a dorm situation, single room w/ no option to house my herps separately from my 'fuzzies'. Even worse; all my animals are stored so they are visually available to each other (because of my room design/layout). I will be feeding f/t to my future BP since I honestly can't have two sets of rats, it would kill me to sacrifice one set even though I would be doing it for the good of another one of my pets. with that said,

will housing a BP under/across from live rats be in any way detrimental to the snake or make feeding f/t rodents (even if fed f/t previously) impossible?

We keep multiple ball pythons housed in the same large room that houses our good sized rat colony. It's never been an issue. The only issue is to remember to not handle the snake when you've just been handling a rat. It's easy to forget and be feeding rats then go to quickly tidy up a snake's home and ooooops...guess who smells a bit like dinner. LOL

would it make the snake more inclined to mistake a handler for a meal because of this?

The snake's not making a mistake. As mentioned above, the human being is by smelling like dinner and triggering the snake's instinctive reaction.

Does anyone happen to know the operating electrical cost for keeping a BP? (odd question, i know)

If you choose an efficient heating method it is minimal. If you choose overhead lighting which isn't terribly efficient and tends to dry out the enclosure, it would show more on the monthly bill. Setting up an efficient enclosure that's both easy on your wallet and appropriate for the snake is part of this great learning curve you are doing.

at what age/length does a BP bite start to cause significant damage to a handler?

Anything with teeth can bite. Having said that I've personally been bitten more over the years by my toddler aged children than I have been by our 30+ snakes. I've actually been bitten only once and that was by a very stressed rescue snake.

Ball pythons don't tend to be bite first type snakes but that does not mean they won't ever bite. You'll get to know your snake, you'll get to know what are the indicators of an attitude that says "I will bite you" and when they are just bluffing. That comes with time and close observation. If you do get tagged (aka bitten) try to not pull back as they have recurved teeth and you'll only hurt them and yourself. Most times though if they do nail you it's a fast slap and they don't clamp down and start to constrict. Ball pythons really don't get large enough to do significant damage to the average adult anyways. Even our biggest female at just over 5 ft and over 7 lbs in weight can be handled by children (under supervision).

what can I expect as far as standard veterinary fees go for a CB ball with no major health concerns?

Before you ever buy the snake find a vet to see it. That's better than having a medical issue and not knowing who to call. Once you find a vet local to you that's experienced with snakes, ask their office for an estimate of fees. That should cover a basic check over, making sure the snake does not have external parasites, weighing the snake, etc. and then at your choice - a fecal float to rule out internal parasites and sexing (usually an extra charge).

and lastly (and certainly most opinion-based), which is better? a male or female BP?

Depends really. If you are looking purely for a pet ball python then a nice normal (non-morph) male makes a perfect choice. They don't tend to get as big as the females but otherwise their care, temperment, etc. is basically the same. Normal males are not required in most breeding operations so you are often able to get a top quality snake from a top breeder for a very reasonable price.

If you are considering breeding down the road, then a lovely normal female would be the better long term choice I think.

Whatever you pick I'd say go with a reputable breeder. You'll get a well started, properly sexed, healthy snake that you know it's hatch date, you k now it's eating and how and what it eats, etc. I would advise you to consider a pet store purchased snake as your last resort.

I'll be moving back to chicago in a month

I don't know if you are aware Chris that every October there is a top snake show held in Tinley. My husband and I plan to attend it this year. It features some of the premiere breeders in the ball python world and since you will be moving so close to Tinley (which I believe is a suburb of Chicago) you may want to attend. Be prepared to drool and become hopelessly addicted to ball pythons.

http://www.narbc.com/htm2006/tp_index.htm

Pictures from last years Tinley show (by Celia at EbN - get the bib you won't believe the snakes!).....

http://www.exoticsbynature.com/07tinleyphotos.html

[chaa]

I don't know if you are aware Chris that every October there is a top snake show held in Tinley. My husband and I plan to attend it this year. It features some of the premiere breeders in the ball python world and since you will be moving so close to Tinley (which I believe is a suburb of Chicago) you may want to attend. Be prepared to drool and become hopelessly addicted to ball pythons.

wow!! thanks so much for your in-depth responses!

It's really reassuring that multiple members have kept BDs and BPs in the same area without problems, that was one of my big concerns. I do keep a little bottle of odorless hand sanitizer by my pet enclosures, so long as i remember to always sanitize between rat handling and BP care it sounds like I really wont have much of a problem.

I'm well aware that any animal can (and most likely will) bite, my BD is a feisty (but very well bred) sandfire X orange short-snout male that really loves to take a nice chomp once and a while. It sounds to me like a BD bite is actually more painful than a ball strike, since it's basically a blood blister compared to a couple punctures. That's more why i asked about what ages snakes could start to do real damage. I'm well prepared for a few tags here and there.

thank you SO much for the link you sent me!! I also did some google-ing and found that the dupage fairgrounds has a monthly-ish exotic pet gathering that also has some descent-looking ball breeders. do you have any experience with that venue at all?

Because I'm really going for a good starter snake here I think what I'm going to do is ask breeders for their best-tempered male. I don't have the space or finances to start breeding balls at this point, so I think the best thing to do is go for a cost effective snake that's more about personality than markings.
... of course seeing the extreme morphs on sites like this doesn't help at all. i often catch myself figuring out how to budget a multi-thousand dollar ball!!

[SatanicIntention]

FWIW, I keep about 25 rats(pets only) in the same room as all of my Ball Pythons and never once have I been bitten if I smell of rat. None of my 43 Balls recognize rats as food. Now if I take them into the living room where the mice(I feed mice only to the Ball Pythons) are located, they can get a bit more "aware".

One word of caution though, since you are keeping pet rats, I would not bring in live, unquarantined rats. They can put your current girls at risk from viruses such as Sendai, SDA, external parasites such as mites and lice. I would either feed mice or feed f/t rats, much less risk of bringing something unknown into your current group.

[chaa]

I would not bring in live, unquarantined rats. They can put your current girls at risk from viruses such as Sendai, SDA, external parasites such as mites and lice. I would either feed mice or feed f/t rats, much less risk of bringing something unknown into your current group.

absolutely, that's the major reason I'm going to be feeding f/t (well... that, plus i dont think i could sacrifice a rat i bonded with ). I'm under the impression that feeding multiple smaller prey animals was more effective than one large one, that seems to be recommended on some caresheets. when i get closer to the actual date of acquisition i'll probably think more about that. But if that is what everyone recommends i'll definitely be going with f/t mice.

the only problem with f/t is that my building looses power about once a month for a few hours... i cant imagine how that'd go over with a pile of mice in my freezer!!