My name is Jeremy and I live in Iowa. I recently decided I wanted to get my first snake. Upon massive amount of research I decided a ball would be the perfect snake. During the research I came across this site and have been lurking for about 3 weeks now. I finally brought home my first ball python yesterday.

I first stopped at a local petstore called Aqua Land here in Des Moines. http://aqualandpetsplus.com/ They have a great selection of animals and a very knowledgeable staff. They only had some grown balls and baby albinos which are out of my price range and I wanted to grow with my snake so an adult wasn't what I had in mind. I drove to 4 petsmart/petco locations, 2 had balls and 2 didn't. The first one I came across with ball pythons had one. He looked very poor, scars, stuck shed, very skinny. I almost picked him up but I didn't want a vet visit already and this was my first snake. The second one with snakes had 3 in a large tank with separate hides. They all looked very healthy to me anyway. I chose the largest of the group and it was $40. Took her home and measured and he/she is right at 26 inches. I don't have a scale.

The tank is a 45 gallon that I have had setup all week to monitor conditions. The hot side is 91 the cool side stays between 78 and 81 and ambient air seems to stay right at 80. Humidity stays between 60 and 65 with the cheap gauge for now. I have an uth and a hydrofarm thermostat.

I named it Torque...I am a diesel mechanic afterall. It seems like it was always hunting for food non stop for 24 hours so I decided to offer him a rat today out of curiosity. I tossed it in the tank and the rat didn't even have a chance to look around before it was coiled up. Wonderful to watch! I'm not sure if this was the right thing to do or not but it seemed happy. A rather large rat but the guy at aqualand said it was ok. Torque didn't have a problem. I plan on getting a digital hydrometer/ Thermometer from Walmart tonight. Sorry for the long read, just seems like everyone always asks those questions. Let me know how I'm doing and I know the tank might be a little large? Heres the pics!!!













On a side not I also plan on buying some poster board and blacking 3 sides of the tank out later tonight also, and find a water dish that better suits him. He doesn't seem to like the hides after he fed?