I agree you should really study the caresheets that are stickied at the top of this forum page.

I am glad you are trying to do what is right for your new snake, but you do have a ways to go.

Ball pythons are different than many other snakes that like/need large open areas and minimal heat. Balls pythons are by nature burrowers, so they prefer small, tight spaces and need belly heat to help them digest food and maintain proper temperature. It also means you aren't going to see a ball python much. They spend 95% of their time in the smallest, tightest space they can squeeze into, hiding. A hiding ball is a happy ball, so it's not fear, it's their nature. I have 8, and 90%of the time, except on feeding day, all I see of them is their heads poking out of the hides when I'm in the room.

You little one is trying to shed, so it needs high humidity, peace and quiet until it can shed. The fastest way to do this with your current setup would be to get a small hide, even a cereal bowl turned upside down with a door cut in it will work, then fill the bowl with damp moss and place it in the cage.

If you want to keep the large tank, you'll need to crowd it with hides and other things to help your ball feel secure. They really do better with smaller spaces when young, remember a baby anything is always in danger from predators in the wild, and that instinct is not gone in your pet. The more open the cage, the more danger the snake feels. I've seen this firsthand.

I always thought keeping snakes in tubs was wrong and cruel. How can a snake be happy crammed into such a tiny space? That was before I got my own. I had to deal with constant stress, bad feeding, bad sheds, general crabbiness, and a whole lot more. Eventually it got so bad, I had to give my adults up because I had to face the fact that I didn't know how to care for them.

So, when I got my babies, I did a LOT, I mean a LOT of research. When I discovered the people I would be buying my babies from used tubs, I decided I'd start with tubs, then move them to the big, open tanks I knew they needed later. Guess what? When I moved them, I started the whole cycle over again. Stress, not eating, bad sheds, etc. I moved them back to the tubs, and had happy snakes again. So, lesson learned. I don't always know as much as I think I do, and ball pythons really do like small enclosures.

Gale