Huge enclosure set-up

[Slim]

There are several optimal ways to keep Ball Pythons, and several truly horrible ways to keep Ball Pythons; which leaves tons of room in the middle. The middle is neither good, or bad, just not always within what most keepers recognize as normal. While I don't think it's horrible to keep a BP, even a baby BP in a huge tank, I think you have to be responsive to YOUR individual animal. Some will do just fine in a large environment, and some will stress out to the point of going off food.

And while we're on the subject of stress, please allow me to make this point. While I agree that BPs in the wild have the whole world to explore, it's worth noting that they really only naturally occupy a small sliver of that world. And, even if you can successfully replicate that small sliver, in a 100 gallon tank, it's still a tank, and the animal is still in captivity. Both of which induce stress on the animal. No matter how comfortable you think your little Beeper is, there is stress involved with being in captivity for any wild animal. If your animal deals with that stress well enough to also handle a large enclosure, then good on both of you...have a ball, so to speak. But, this will not be the case for every animal. To talk of building super large enclosures before you even own an animal that will be comfortable in that type of environment is not only putting the two wheeled buggy in front of the equine, it's frankly selfish on the keepers part.

Too many times I see threads asking, "Why can't I keep my BP in a huge natural cage, for the good of the animal", when what the keeper really means is, I want my BPs to be cool display animals, and since they just don't do that well, I'm gonna' make a display out of their cage, and the animal will just have to deal with it...for it's own good.

This is one area where checking your ego at the door could benefit your snake in the long run.

Again. let me be clear. I'm not saying huge enclosures are inherently a bad thing, but if your snake does not thrive in that environment, you should be prepared to ego check out that situation and move the animal to an enclosure more suited to that individual snake.