question about color

[Lancerlot109@aol.com]

is there any kind of product that will bring out the color of a ball python?

i spoke to a man who owns the pet store that i get my food for my snake from. he explained to me that wild caught ball pythons tend to be more "orange" than those who are captive breed due to the fact that wild caught pythons get more uv light than those who are in captivity.

im looking to have a rack system soon. and i just wanted to know if there was anything out there that will give more vitamins to my ball python to help him with his skin and will bring out the color.

another reason why i am asking is that my friend has a green iguana. and he told me he has a vitamin spray that he uses once a week. he showed me a picture and it was one of the brightest green iguanas that i have ever seen. simply beautiful.

[mues155]

I honestly think your pet store clerk is full of crap IMO.
Ive never heard of anyone ever saying that a wild caught BP is brighter because of sunlight. Not with any snake.
A snake goes in the sun for one reason, soaking up some heat. They dont benefit from UV rays like a lizard does. Thats why captive snakes do not need UV lights, they get all their nutrition from rodent prey. Most species of snakes are hidden in burrows most of day and come out closer to dusk.

Ive heard of vitamins you can sprinkle on prey before you feed, you could maybe google it? But i see no reason to really use these if your feeding appropriate sized meals frequently.
And ive never heard of anyone using it before. But you could give it a try and see if you see a difference.

[sho220]

A normal's gonna look like a normal no matter what you feed it.

[dr del]

Hi,

I used to have a UV for my BP's back in the day (er... late 90's in my case ). They are hardly ever out in the day to get any benefit from it.

But .... Talking pictures under one sure looks purty.

I also think supplemental vits every once in a blue moon couldn't hurt - but you can certainly give them too much of some vits and with a healthy whole prey item they probably don't need any at all.


dr del

[loonunit]

Aw, don't feed it weird supplements. They eat rodents, that's a complete diet for them--anything else will likely make them sick. The wild caught ones (most of whom are actually CH) are more "orange" because they're all hatchlings and juveniles when they ship, and orange tends to fade as they mature.

If you badly want a day lamp, i don't think it will hurt, just make sure the snake has plenty of hides so it can get away from it. They really do most of their sleeping during the day...

[purplemuffin]

Full spectrum lighting makes any animal look INCREDIBLE..might not be permanent, but under that light, they sure look NICE... Especially an iridescent snake. Ever see a Brazilian Rainbow Boa in UVB light compared to looking at it in the boring light at conventions? It's like looking at a different animal. Beta fish breeders even use UVB when taking pictures to help sell their fishy babies

So maybe just try taking pictures under that lighting to see how gorgeous they are Or, even better, in the sun!

Now, my vet has mentioned experimenting with small doses of uvb in nocturnal animals and has noted having some very small improvements in animals like leopard geckos(getting 1 hour of uvb in early morning and 1 hour in the late afternoon to replicate the bit of sun they see in the sunrise/sunset time when they become most active) seeing that the injured animals exposed to small doses of UVB healed quicker than those not exposed to it. Heard the same about pacman frogs, small 1-2 hour doses of a low level uvb every once in a while helping it out some. No clue on BPs though. UVB tends to be pretty bright though, so a high stress snake might not enjoy it too much. They do look awful pretty underneath it, but I wouldn't put one under UVB permanently if it didn't need it. Things like this are constantly debated though.

For my future brazilian rainbow, I might have UVB available, but not on all the time. Mostly just on occasion in the day time when the snake is out and about to 'show off' my snake a little bit. So pretty

But no, I don't think UVB will make the snake look more gorgeous forever. I have seen PLENTY of incredible cbb ball python normals who have never seen the stuff, and plenty of normals with no orange who are wild caught(Like mine, he was wild caught as a yearling, so he had time to absorb the sun rays)

[PitOnTheProwl]

Heard the same about pacman frogs

I have an Exoterra Nano with a UVB bulb running on it, my green packman is in a tank next to it. He looks like a totally different frog when he is on the side of his tank that gets the UVB light overflow