I bought my ball about two from my biology teacher, who gave me the snake, the terrarium and everything in it for 40$. She was not being kept very well; i did not own a snake and this was obvious. I am posting this here to make sure I am giving my ball the correct care because I love her to death.

Tank: She is 3'2" and the terrarium I got her in is 24x12x17. I'd like to get her a bigger one, but I don't have the money yet so I'm doing the best I can. It is glass with a screen top; no latch or lock so i keep my biology textbook on the corner. See picture at bottom.

Heating: When I got her, the only form of heat she had was a heating pad at the bottom of the cage that didn't get all that hot. The room she was kept in was cold all the time and this was one of my main concerns when i first got her. First I bought just a heating lamp; 65 watt bulb kept on the opposite side than the heating pad. I had that for about a month and just recently bought a ceramic heating element because the light bulbs kept burning out and it wasn't keeping the tank warm enough anyway. The cool side of the tank is about 80 degrees and the warmer side is about 90 degrees, both with some fluctuation.

Hide places: Her water dish also functions as a hide place, as it is dark and has a lid that i cut a hole through so she could fit entirely inside. She loves this water dish and spends a lot of her time inside of it, especially before a shed. It is on the cool side of the tank. On the warm side of the tank is another hide box of the same size that i covered in duct tape to keep it dark (both water dish and hide box are home-made from tupperware). She doesn't seem to mind the duct tape; i made sure it didn't noticeably smell. She hides in there a lot too.

Other things in the tank: She has a wooden thing that came with it - it was three pieces of wood screwed together, but it looks like it was manufactured. I took one of the pieces off because it took up too much room in the cage. It doesn't have any sharp edges or anything. I put some fake plant palms in there because i heard it can somehow help with humidity; also it makes the tank look more appealing. She doesn't have too much of an interest in them.

Substrate/lining/bottom-of-the-cage-floor: The cage wasn't lined with anything when I bought her, it was just the plain glass, so started to line it with newspaper because I figured that was easy to clean. Unfortunately she found out she could crawl under and inside of it. When I woke up in the morning it would be completely obliterated, and i had to reline it every day. I bought a repti-carpet and she hasn't burrowed under it; it also seems to help with trapping heat in the cage which is nice, because i live on the second floor above the garage and sometimes it can get pretty cold in my room. I tried to make sure it wouldn't harm her first.

Readers: The cage came with two temperature readers on each side of the cage and a humidity reader in the middle.

Humidity: This is probably the thing I've had the most trouble with. I would spray the cage with distilled water when I woke up in the morning for school and when i got home and before i went to bed. I still struggled to keep it above 30% humidity. So, in her hide box on the warm side of the cage i put a paper towel attached to the bottom and spray it with water. I guess this is called a humidity box? Also, I have started wetting down a washcloth and putting it on the top of the cool side of the tank. This has helped up the humidity, it now sits most often between 50-70%.

Day/Night cycles: I open my blinds and turn on my desk light before I leave (cage is on desk). I turn them off before I go to bed.

Feeding: I feed her a fairly large rat every week and a half. I tried to feed her weekly but she wouldn't them every time, and when I fed her every two weeks she would act hungry. So. Large rat every week and half. I feed her in her own cage. I will buy a rat, kill it by putting it in a bag and hitting it against the wall (I don't want to feed it to her live because I'm scared it will hurt her and I try to be merciful with the prey) then, while wearing what I call her "feeding glove" I dangle it by the tail in the cage. She normally sniffs around and then strikes it; I make it wiggle some more while she's constricting it, and the just let her eat the rest of it. Sometimes if she looses hold of it she has to look for the head again; i found that when i was feeding her mice she would eat them from any angle. The first time I fed her a rat she took like 5 minutes looking for the head and positioning the prey to eat it.

As a side note I was very surprised that my teacher was only feeding her a single adult mouse every two weeks!. I would feed her two mice every week and a half but I tried a rat one day and she loved it. It's been rats ever since.

Shedding: Rusty (snake) had a really bad shed the first time. I think it was because she was in a new home, and also because I didn't keep up the humidity then. It took a really long time for her to ever start to peel her skin off, and even then it wouldn't all come off. It was flaky and it looked really uncomfortable. Her eye caps were on for a very very long time. Eventually I held her and pulled them off myself; she started acting more like herself after that. I was pulling pieces of shed off of her for a very long time. :[ I felt so bad!
She is at the start of her shed cycle now. Her eyes have gotten the eyecaps and she is spending a lot of time in her water dish soaking. She seems to be doing well. We'll see how this shed goes; I'll follow up on it.

Exercise/Behavior: Because there are not many climbing places in her cage (working on that!) I take her out at least every other day and give her attention. She likes to slither around my floor while I clean my room and sometimes I'll hang her around my neck while I'm sitting in my chair or at my desk doing homework. She is very curious and tries to get into everything of mine; i found if i let her explore it while being supervised she'll leave it alone. The thing she will NOT leave along at all is this chair I have. It's pretty old and has gears and things in it. It's electric and it's so old when i plug it in it trips the breaker. She always tries to slither inside of it! It gives me a heart attack. I never leave her alone and try to keep her from the chair. She got inside once when I left my friend to watch her, we got her out safely and without any injury. (Had to cut the chair up, though) I never leave her alone in anyone else's hands again. I have 3 younger siblings and many friends, she doesn't mind at all being handled by any of them but they're not allowed to do so unless I'm there. She is very docile and friendly. She has never anyone when I had her, she never bit anyone when my teacher had her and according to him her previous owner said that she never bit anyone when she was in his care either.
I've noticed that when I put something in her cage that she doesn't like she'll hiss at it from the other side. I super-glued a platform on the side of the cage (so she could climb around) and boy did she hate that. She hissed at it all the time. So I removed it and washed all the super glue off. It's not a problem anymore. She's never hissed at me, the only time she ever made a noise at me was when i was holding her down to get her eyecaps off (she never holds still enough for me to just do it). She made a noise that sounded like she was grumbling! I let her go play for a while and eventually she forgave me. I've heard it's rare for balls to yawn, but I see her do it at least every two week. I had her around my neck once, and she yawned right next to my throat! Scared me half to death! But she never has tried to bite/strike/constrict/attack me in any way. She just likes to yawn next to my jugular. -eyeroll-


I think I've covered just about everything here, let me know if there is anything I can do better because I really love my Rusty and I want her to get the best care I can provide.