Last Sunday, we bought a baby ball python at a reptile show. He was born on June 12, 2013. He's 18 inches long and weighs 92 grams. We were really unprepared and didn't know much at all about the snake before we bought him. Mistake number one! We stopped by a local pet store on the way home that has a good reputation and a ton of snakes and reptiles. We bought a small take, a hide, some coconut substrate and a red lamp. It took an hour or so to get everything set up but the little guy settled right in. He explored his tank for a bit and then went into his hide. The next day, my husband got a under take heating pad. We also put a tupperware dish of clean water in his tank. We are measuring the heat using a temperature gun that uses a laser to measure heat. The hot side of his tank is from 90 - 88 and the cool side is from 78 - 75. We don't have a humidity gauge yet so my husband has been spraying the substrate once a day when he changes the water. He seemed to be a very relaxed little guy. He basically stayed in his hide during the day and came out for at night, alternating between drinking water (man, is that cool to watch), exploring and going back into his hide.
His feeding schedule before we got him was a pinky every Monday. We waited until Tuesday and he took the pinky just fine. He stayed mostly in his hide, coming out occasionally to the water dish and then going back in.
Here's where we really messed up. We took him out of his hide last night to show to a neighbor and also to move his cage from the kitchen island to a space we'd cleared in the living room. We kept him out way too long, let him be handled by too many people and to add insult to injury, we moved his space. Since we put him back in his cage, he's been constantly on the the move, stretching up towards the top of tank and nosing the lid. He has gone in and out of his hide but he won't stay in it and rest like he did before. He is obviously agitated.
I feel so bad that we stressed him out so much. We had planned on getting a bigger cage this weekend and another hide for the cool side. (Here's another rookie mistake...the cage we have is too small for two hides). We were also going to get a humidity gauge. We're still planning on getting all that stuff but now I'm worried that we've messed the little guy up so much that making changes to his habitat will make things even worse!
My husband said that he calmed down for a little while today but he has not spent any time in his hide and now he's back to constantly moving and stretching up to the top of the tank every few minutes.
He. Is. Stressed. And we did it too him. I'm worried now that we've ruined his previously mellow and relaxed disposition.
From everything I've read, it would seem that the best thing to do is to leave him alone, make sure his temps are good and keep the humidity up by spraying the tank once a day.
Poor little guy. We really messed up.
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