I for one think that there is too much emphasis placed on the importance of humidity. Granted, my experience with ball pythons is limited compared to a few other members on here, but despite the fact that I own very few balls, I have owned them for quite a long time. I only bump up humidity when my ball is in shed and the weather is very dry, otherwise I pay little to no attention to it. None of my animals has ever had a retained eye cap, a stuck shed, or a respiratory infection.

On the other hand, a friend of mine who wanted to be very attentive to her new pet ball was very interested in the humidity. I told her what I'd heard; that higher humidity is better for the most part (60 - 80%). She would spray the tank down with water, put a wet towel on top etc when it dipped below that. The snake got pneumonia and died before it was a year old. Another friend of mine who was mostly interested in frogs and amphibians had a snake that was troubled for years by respiratory infections. He thought the species was just prone to that ailment; I thought he kept his humidity too high.

I can't help but believe that high humidity does more damage than good to these snakes. Bacteria love hot, damp places. What happens to a ball with high humidity? It can get scale rot, mouth rot, RIs and the like. What happens when the humidity is too low? Bad sheds, and that's pretty much the end of it. What do you guys think? Has your snake ever gotten sick from being too dry?