i was recently selling some things on craigslist and i was offered a female ball python as a trade as i had put in the posting that they are pretty much the only thing id trade for. the buyer showed up with the ball python in the worst condition i have ever seen, i couldn't send him home with it i went through with the trade for the BP's sake.

its a female normal about 2.5-3 feet long 2 years old and 371 grams, as u can picture in your head nothing but spine. looks like he fed it 4 times a year rather then a month. it was kept in a 20 gallon tank with some kind of dry dirt like stuff as a substrate, she was dehydrated, when she would put out her tongue to sense things she could hardly pull it back in like her mouth was too dry! you can see skin down her spine between her scales not like shes missing scales but just between the scales does anyone know what could cause this i have heard of obesity causing this but deff not the case here.

as soon as i got her inside i raised the humidity levels of one of the bins on my rack as much as i could soaked the paper towel substrate and gave her a big water bowl for her to soak. i know everyone says to let there stress levels go down before feeding after they have been transported i couldnt wait i defrosted a 51 gram small rat (smallest i had(shes skinny!)) and tried to feed it to her making it do the "zombie dance" right away she was interested as i had expected so i zombie danced and zombie danced and zombie danced ... nothing she was just smelling it i stopped and just held it there and VERY slowly she bit onto it and slowly wrapped around it with hardly any force and it must have taken her a good half hour to swallow it. as far as movements she is not head shy shes active loves being held clearly wasn't abused just very uncared for. after 24 hours she had eaten the 51 gram rat but her weight had gone from 371 to 485 .... she had taken in 63 grams of water! on day 2 i gave her a second 50 gram small rat and weighed her shortly after and she weighed 564, so if we do 564 minus 371 thats nearly 200 gram gain in 48 hours half being water!

(i dont see any signs of mouth rot or mites)

so some of my questions are

Whats the deal with the scales? is it from her skin being draped over her spine so drastically? any ideas? (you can only see skin along the spine)

should i power feed her feeding her a small rat every 3 day untill shes back to a healthy weight? or should to still do a small rat once a week? my instinct tells me to power feed because i want to see her healthy.


and general advice is ALWAYS welcome, i fully plan on seeing her through a full recovery before anything gets done with her weather it be keep, breed, sell or trade.

the pics im posting below one is of her so u can get an idea of her size mind you this is after she put on the 200 grams with me. and the other is so you can see the scale situation.






thank you all so much in advance.