Beginner Advice Needed

[Bai]

Hi all!

My 11 year old daughter is the recent, proud owner of a small ball python purchased for her as a gift at a local petco. The gift giver was a well meaning family member who inadvertently saddled us with what I have come to discover is a 20-30 year commitment to a species I had never considered previously. We have never had a pet that didn't have fur. My daughter had been begging for a snake for months. The good news is that after a couple of weeks, I'm actually quite fond of the little guy and have learned more about BPs in the past couple of weeks than I ever thought possible. The bad news is, I'm still struggling with a few concerns/issues and would like some guidance.

#1- The set up that was purchased. Again, I appreciated the money spent on her and the effort that went into this, but our little danger noodle is in a 20L "starter snake" setup. I have quickly discovered this is mostly garbage. I had to throw out half the things it came with and drop another $150 on programmable thermostats, digital thermometer/hydrometers, new substrate, etcetcetc. The top is wire mesh I believe. I get the temperature gradience right, the humidity drops, I get the humidity correct, the temperature is off. I've made do by placing a layer of chloroplast/plastic with a towel over part of the tank and adding moss/misting. If I don't mist, the covered side of the tank has a reasonable 60 percent humidity and the uncovered side gets down to 38 without misting several times a day. Any other advice would be appreciated, including sources for custom set up options. I've seen a few custom setups online that I would be interested in dropping some real cash on for him in the next two years or so, but only notes on how they were built and no sale information. Neither my husband nor myself are handy.

#2- He came to us in the middle of a really bad shed. We kept the humidity at 70-80% and gave him a good soak for about 15 minutes while gently rubbing him, and he looks much better now, but has still retained an eyecap. At this point I'm playing the wait and see game. I was also concerned about his weight. He currently weighs 73grams according to a digital scale I just bought. Most information points to him being a hatchling, though our family member said the petco employee said he had been there about 3 weeks and was being fed a fuzzy weekly. We've upped him to hoppers, and has taken three frozen/thawed meals from us with no issue. I don't know how much he weighed when we got him. What is a good rate of growth? I would estimate him to be between 16-18inches.

#3- At some point I'd like to get him switched over to rats because I can't imagine feeding him 4-5 mice at a time depending on how big he gets. I've identified a local reptile show an hour from my home that occurs monthly, though the frozen rat suppliers do not have the sizes that he would need at this time. When the time comes, how do I transition him before I buy the minimum required 25 rats? The smallest they carry is "small rats", and I prefer not to order the very expensive packs of frozen rat pups online without knowing that we'll be able to get him to take them.

He (or she) is really a very sweet snake and although mistakes were clearly made out of the gate here, we are committed to doing right by him. Any advice/guidance you can give to a beginner on the above items or just general recommendations would be much appreciated.