New to forums and BPs, and already a bad dad. :-(

[SamTLam]

Hi BPers!

You know, I had only intended on coming onto these forums to read, but now I have to chime in to say I am so amazingly grateful to everyone for all your wonderful advice, posts, anecdotes, etc. These forums are a priceless resource.

I am the proud-but-sleeplessly-worried new owner of a baby ball python, whom I got two Wednesdays ago (so, on May 17th, 2006). His name is Ash. (That's short for a Hebrew word for serpent, which is Nachash. I'm very Vietnamese, but I have a very Hebrew first name--Samuel/Sh'muel )

This is a pic of him the day I got him:


And his tank set-up the last week and half:



The setup included:
UTH on the hot end (underneath his hide) with a heating lamp directly above for basking. These are both set up to the same dimmer switch. Water dish on the cold end.

And that's actually it. You can see how I have virtually no control over the cold end. You'll see how this also played into the horror of the last week.

--

Man, has it been a ridiculously difficult ride. I mean, I thought I did my research and preparations properly before I got little Ash, but I had no idea what it actually entitled to have a ball python. I'm pretty much a newbie to BPs, and unfortunately it shows. I'm honestly trying my best!

Trying to cram the last week-and-a-half into a nutshell, but I always tend to ramble, and I also have new daddy syndrome:

I got him Wednesday, the 17th. I let him hang out in his tank for a while. I set his temperatures to a steady 92-76 (which I now realize is way too low on the cold end; I also have non-digital thermometers--more on this later). Hardly any temp variations because of the nice steady weather we had been having... which then changed. After talking to the store, I determined that his first feed should be the following Sunday.

I went back to the store on Sunday to get his first meal at his new home. Unfortunately, I ran into a seller there who didn't know that the store was feeding their baby balls mice, nor, I suppose, did he really understand that baby balls should probably be eating mice anyway. So the guy sold me a baby rat. (He was scolded by his co-workers, but honest mistake.) Ash did not take to the rat at all. Eventually the rat died--which was also painful to watch, but what was more painful was thinking that he was just not eating.

I went back on Tuesday the 23rd, told them what was up. The more experienced employees hardly said anything and just showed me a fuzzie. "Feed him this." I bought it, went home, and Ash took it faster than you can say CHEESE. I was elated! And so I planned on waiting 48+ hours to handle him for the first time. Worst thing that could've possibly happened that night? Can you imagine?...

Blackout. My area was blacked out that day from evening to about 2 AM. OHMIGOD, I thought I was going to break down and cry. Fortunately, the evenings were really nice and warm earlier this week, and I cranked up our room heater as far as it would, so that it was a steady 80 degrees throughout the room. STILL, as you guys can imagine, this wasn't helping poor Ash.

The power went back on, I reset the temps. Again, about 92-76--still too low, I know. Worst thing is on Wednesday, it started getting colder. (I live in the Bay Area, so climate changes are, well, expected.) So the temp was dropping wildly to low 70's on the cold end.

And then, because I thought everything was going well and because I saw Ash was going about his tank, looking content, I did the stupidest thing I could do during all these wild temperature fluctuations, and during his first meal at his new home, and while he was so young: I handled him on Thursday night. YES, it was more than 48 hours after feed, but in retrospect I should've been far easier on the guy and waited even longer.

Ash took to handling pretty well, I thought. He didn't ball up, and was very attentive and moved around a lot on my hand after a few minutes of watching me. I handled him about 15 minutes and put him back in.

Next morning, I walk out into the living room, look in the tank, and what do I see? A regurg. Okay, my heart went from sheer elation the previous day to shattering into a million pieces. Now, I wasn't SURE if it was regurg at first. I mean, it was clearly hairy, but it also looked to have traces of what could be poop. The thing was that, it didn't SMELL. I took it to the store, and they looked at it and were in disagreement among themselves, then one of the guys actually BROKE UP the lump of matter and, well, the odor flew out and we knew it was regurg. Absolutely disgusting.

I felt horrible. I still feel horrible. I can't even imagine how painful that was.

Anyway, the advice the store gave me, which I think you guys would agree with, is to leave Ash alone for at least two weeks (maybe even three), and then try feeding him something much smaller at that point (maybe a pinkie). Until then, I should really monitor the temps, specifically the temperature variance, which, one of the store employees said, "should not even come close to a max/min of plus/minus 10. It should not vary beyond a range of, say, 5 degrees tops. Steady is what you should aim for. Get a min-max thermometer, like at a hardware store, and if the temperature fluctuates wildly, you're going to have to bite the bullet and get a thermostats or two."

--

Okay, that's been my story. So my planned solutions are as follows:

1. I'm going to go to WalMart today, get an Acu-Rite thermometer+hygrometer. Straightforward enough. Note that I haven't even been checking his humidity, though temp seems to be the #1 problem now.
2. I'm going to buy another UTH to put on the cold end, and I also plan on getting thermostats for both the hot-end UTH and the new cold-end UTH, and do away completely with my dimmer switch. I think the weather here changes too much, and my apartment gets too cold, to simply not make that investment. (Do you guys have recommendations for tstats? The store sells ESU and Zoo-Med tstats.)

Anything else?

Incidentally, I've found a temporary solution until I go shopping today. What do you guys think? I've moved the heat lamp toward the CENTER of the tank. The temps were steady yesterday early evening at 92-82 for many hours, and when late night hit, dropped to about 88-78. I think that's the best his temperatures have EVER been, but I know it can get even colder in my apartment, so tstats seem to be the way to go.

Nevertheless, by repositioning the heat lamp, I've gained some control over the cold end, without sacrificing too much control over the hot end and UTH. The con is that I don't know what the ambient temp is like in the tank (I imagine the basking spot, which is now directly on the center of the tank, is majorly hot), nor the humidity, which actually may be better now that the water dish (on the cold end) is forced to evaporate. Anyway, moving the heat lamp may give me an idea of how I'll do my final setup later on.

Lastly, I know that I could invest in the world's most advanced ball python cage, but though I'm not financially unstable, I'm not rich. I'm also new to this, and if you guys could ease me in, that would be good. Help me figure out the NECESSITIES before the LUXURIES, which seem to be so hard to distinguish, especially when you're dealing with a living creature, especially a baby--snake or otherwise. Every luxury suddenly seems like a necessity!

Any ideas, advice, thoughts would be so appreciated. Thanks for reading my long post, if you have!

--Sam.

P.S. As I'm writing this morning, I just walked outside to check on Ash. He stayed curled up in his hide after the regurg, but is now out and about again. I didn't know you could totally fall in love with a snake.