This was 3 days from a feeding, his husbandry was not updated yet, and it was nighttime. I had a lamp on but it's light isn't very bright.

It was right after some very calm five minute direct handling, and after I had set him down to go wherever he wanted to, with intention of letting him explore. He chose this location and just took a nap.

Please note that this video was taken a while ago, back when his husbandry was very bad (little humidity, 70°F on the cold side and a range of 85°F-100°F from a UTH without a thermostat) and has since been corrected. This was when I was taking him out to warm him up because The UTH got too hot for him and he had spent too long in the cold side. His body temperature was chilly.

I can't really see his eyes from the angle I was at when I took the video, but his tongue wasn't flicking and he wasn't responding to my hand moving anywhere:



(The second touch, he did not bite me. He smacked me with his butt because I woke him up... very grumpy beep.)

I can't really think of any other scenario where it would even be necessary to wake a snake up, other than the owner/handler being as irresponsible as I had been. But I can imagine one wrong move could earn a quick defensive strike.

So let's assume that the owner has his/her Ball Python out and is googling how to wake them up without upsetting them... (because I had been at the time and couldn't find anything on it.) Or perhaps they need to take them to the vet, or some actually logical reason to interrupt their slumber.

What is your advice you would give them?


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