I've been lurking here for what seems like months. This site has been a huge help in picking my next pet.

I currently have

1 Ger Shep/Gold ret mix male dog Monty
2 Male 15lb cats Tank and Megellan
2 Parrots (1 Yellow Collared Mini Macaw - looking for home and 1 Hahn's Macaw) Dante and Stanley
3 Ferrets (2 normal, 1 silver blaze deaf) Bandit Rascal Duncan
1 Leopard Gecko (found a home for this one) Iggy
1 New baby BP (still need a name)

I've never owned a snake of any type before. I've had numerous reptiles though. I've raised 2 sets of turtles from hatchlings up to nearly 1ft shell length. Had a set of firebellied toads that I was really into but had a young cousin who absolutely adored them so they went to live with her. I love the parrots but 2 is 1 too many with our schedules so we've decided to find a good home for the larger of the mini macaws. Not to mention the fact that they LOVE trying to out squawk one another.

I'm nearly ashamed to say that I picked up the snake at PetCo. I knew going into it what type of snake they were probably selling but I had very little luck in contacting a breeder (do all of them just ignore phone calls?) and the 29.99 price tag was very hard to argue with. I did spend about an hour in the store handling EVERY SINGLE ONE of the BPs they had before choosing mine. He (he/she who knows?) had the brightest colors of them all. He was also the most docile and by far the first to stretch out and investigate me in my hands.

He is living in a 30 gal tank at the moment. I have a 55 gal in the garage reserved for him when the time comes. I took the many pieces of advice here and purchase a digital thermometer/hydrometer. My temps are typically 93 on hot side and 83 on cool side. I do need a thermostat though as I see during the day the temperature creeps up to nearly 100 on the warm side. The probe does tend to rest on the glass most of the time though. I am using the care free recycled newspaper as bedding. I have been happy with it before and the new guy seems content with it. I purchases prefab hides for him on both the warm and cool sides. At first I had the "half log" jobs in there but he didn't seem to really feel secure in them so I sprang for two of the hiding "caves" that are very wide but with a single small entry way. This way he can be totally dark and hidden when he wants to be but still see Mr mouse run by.

He took his first mouse on saturday evening. We picked this as our feeding day and will try to hold the routine. No problems getting him to eat at all. Immediately recognized the prey and jumped right on it. After reading all the "problems" with the snakes feeding I was quite happy about this.

So far so good.

Pics can be found at http://bigddybn.com/Ive%20got%20a%20snake%20man/ There are just a few but they are fairly large and didn't want to post them here for the 56k crowd.

Thanks for the info everyone!