Definitely need a thermostat for your UTH and what kind of light are you using? How are you measuring your temps and where exactly are you measuring them?Originally Posted by skyelovesyou
What kind of fuzzies? Mice? Rats? Most hatchling balls can easily eat rat fuzzies as soon as they come out of the egg, so if he is 6 months old he should be on much larger. Chain pet stores are notorious for "maintenance feeding" their balls, which is basically underfeeding them so they don't grow. Your ball should be eating 10-15% of its body weight every 5-7 days. A small food processing scale is invaluable for new keepers. It will help you learn appropriate feeding and where you can track its growth/weight which can be very valuable if your snake ever becomes sick. If you don't have one you can pick up a cheap digital food scale at Wal-Mart for about $15 and they work great.
As Slim said, the shirt trick might work for puppies, but it will NOT work for your ball. Chances are your snake is just extremely stressed and not used to being handled. Listen to the folks here and read up on the care sheets the folks here provided and you should be just find.
Don't let your ball frighten ya. Most of the time defensive strikes are just a bluff or at most a nip. The worst part about a bite from a young ball like yours is waiting to get bit. It's the unknown that is the scariest part. At worst you can expect a bite to draw a drop or three of blood, but never enough to require a band-aid. After your first actual bite you will laugh because you were scared of nothing.
My biggest piece of advice I can give you though is NEVER listen to the employees at Petsmart. Very, very few of them have any knowledge outside of the care sheet they provide (which everyone here will tell you inaccurate) and they are trained only to up sell products that you don't need to make the company more money. You did the right thing by coming here for advice.
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