feeding queston

[stratus_020202]

I can tell you now, you can not tell what temp that heat mat is by the touch. Unless you are holding your hand to it constantly. They fluctuate terribly, and you have to account for the temp of your house.

This is why a dimmer/thermostat/rheostat is required (not recommended, but required with all heat mats). Dimmers are fairly cheap at any hardware store. They aren't hard to hook up either. I don't understand why you don't want to use it.

If you have a heat gun, have you ever tested her cage since you brought her home? You can even get a thermostat from Amazon for $30.

[jasbus]

I'm glad my assumption was wrong...
Anyway, the baby may not want F/T right away. Sometimes they can take a while to move over to frozen.
At 3 weeks, at best, it's only eaten 2-3 times, most likely only 1-2 times. Call em up, ask em if they fed it f/t.
Get your temps and humidity right, give the little guy at least 2 or 3 days to get used to his new digs, with no handling. Then give it a try, if it doesn't eat, do the same again after a couple more days. If that doesn't do the trick, try a live hopper mouse...

[Skittles1101]

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ghlight=repeat

[jasbus]

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ghlight=repeat

How lovely.... Geez.

[Skittles1101]

How lovely.... Geez.

I'm not making it up lol...

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

Whose assumption is wrong? Every answer you have gotten is spot on correct.

I don't have to say any more about the strict requirements of heat, humidity, digital thermostat, and probed digital thermometer for ball pythons. These things are absolutely required for this species.

BPs are notorious for not eating and quickly getting respiratory infections (which can kill and are expensive to treat) if the husbandry stats are not met.

Such a young baby will not fare well without the proper set up. If you purchased it from a chain pet store, even if they told you it ate, chances are it has not. If that baby was a wholesale captive hatched baby from Africa, like most baby BPs at chain stores are, it was shipped to the pet store before it ate. The stresses of the trip and inadequate husbandry at these stores would mean the baby would not have eaten for them if they tried.

No one is bashing you. They are trying to help. Otherwise you will most certainly have a sick and eventually dead baby on your hands.

Follow the care sheet. It's not very expensive to get these things.

[ballpython20s]

again.... i never said i didnt want to hook one up. all i have said is i dont have one hooked up and i do have a heat gun. ill have to wait for my dad to get home though and i held my hand to both the bottom of my leos cage and the snakes cage for around 1 minutes my leo has a thermosate and it says about 88-90 and the bottom of the snakes tube feel about the same. and yeah i got the snake at southern agriculture and all the ones around here take care of there animals the sale. atleast 99% of them

[ballpython20s]

if you read in a later post jasbus says. i assume its from petco? and i was just say no his assumption is wroung it was from southern agriculture. and why are you guys saying im not willing to follow the care sheets? i would appreciate it if you didnt put words into my mouth.

[jasbus]

The assumption was he got it at Petco....
Yes, almost all the BP's bought from Petco and Petsmart are captive born, a catchy little way for them to say that sounds like they're born from breeders in captivity...

[jasbus]

Hey, we're all just trying to get you set up and going with a good start...
I assumed, and I apolized for that....

I own a pet store, I get "assumptions" all the time...