I've spent the last few weeks planning, researching, and shopping around for my first BP. Yesterday was my (21st) birthday and I decided it was time to give myself a bday present! I had planned on just gathering materials and getting a cage setup, but when I got to petco I took a look at the animals and was surprised to find a very healthy and friendly snake, couldn't pass it up! I was actually ready to talk myself out of it when my girlfriend convinced me to go ahead and get him!

I have his cage all set up, and after some tweaking with the rheostat I have the cage at a perfect 92/83 degree gradient! The humidity is on the high side at 70%, however I live in Alabama and it has been raining every day the last few weeks so there's not too much I can do about that. If it gets any higher I'll take his water bowl out and try to bring the humidity down a bit, but I'm not sure when his last shed was so 70% could end up working out well!

I know you aren't generally supposed to handle them much the first day or two so they can settle in, but this snake has been amazingly friendly and adventurous! At the store he was in a ball in my hand for all of 10 seconds, quickly stretching out and crawling all around my hand. That was one of the main reasons I took him home, he didn't seem scared at all and I could tell he was healthy and strong by how well he was moving around my hand. He has a very strong grip!

While tweaking the temperatures I held him for quite some time. He never balled up, wound up for a strike, or hissed at all! I probably won't handle him too much tomorrow to ensure he doesn't stress out, but he's been crawling around both my hands and his cage since I brought him home so I think he's adjusted just fine!

Here are some pics, I've named him Jake the Snake. Those of you who watched wrestling back in the early 90s will remember that reference Disregard the mess behind his cage, I shoved everything back when setting up his cage and haven't cleaned up yet










Picture taken before tweaking the rehostat and getting a 92/83 temperature gradient