Hi All,

First time posting here, but have been lurking for a good few weeks as I researched the heck out of caring for my new ball python (first time owner). I just bought a 2 year old male normal and if you can understand the reason why I named him Jake then you have an idea of my age bracket (hint: old school WWF). I bring up that just so you know that I'm not a youngin new to the world of taking care of animals; furry, reptile, amphibian (just new to snakes), etc.

I have two newbie questions and even though there are tons of first timer threads here I can't seem to find the answer to these while browsing here and elsewhere.

1. My new guy like I said is 2 years old, about 32" long and about 1.25" in diameter in the thickest part. He looks to be in great shape and healthy, his body doesn't look like he's starving but what got me is that the person I bought him from said she feeds him multiple pinkys each feeding. I can't think that's right for his size and I'm gearing up to do my first feeding. Now I took him home 2 days ago and before that he hasn't eaten in 2 weeks. I want to offer and get some food in his belly soon so without stressing him out to handle and weigh him what do you think a good sized meal for his body diameter would be? I ask this because I've heard that you can comfortably feed a meal at least as large as the widest part even a little larger, but the standard size diagrams I've found here and elsewhere only give the length of the mice/rats, not the girth (or is the length number what I use?). He was on live feedings with the previous owner so I'm going to continue that for the first few times until he's comfy in his new residence.

2. I took the previous owner's entire setup and set it up exactly the way they had it. Right now they had a uth on the side of the tank with the warm side hide wall up against it and they had a purple heat lamp on top. It is a glass tank with mesh top (I have covered the top partially with a towel). Ambient temp read with a digital handheld therm/hygrometer sitting on the substrate in the warm side at about 77-78 degrees. Humidity is fine. It's warmer in the hide reading 81. Cool side is lower at 75. I know I need to get the temps up. I am bringing my temp gun home from work with me today and have my probe thermometer and a thermostat on the way. My question after all of this is are balls hardy enough for the lower temps while I work this out? He seems ok and I have to assume that they can handle some temperature drop otherwise they would have been long extinct off the planet.

Here are some pictures: