Bought a Snake!

[Daybreaker]

I posted a thread a couple weeks ago about buying a snake at the show and ended up buying a male spider from Mark Petros. Mark was awesome and took the time to answer any questions and showed me around his collection of snakes. I am extremely happy with the purchase!

With that being said, are there ball pythons that would rather have their hot side closer to the 88 side instead of 92-93? I have a Hydrofarm thermostat and the accurite thermometer/hygrometer to read the temps and I have the thermostat set to 94 which the thermometer says that it fluctuates up to 94. But the snake is still hiding on the cool side which is reading about upper 70's lower 80's.

My balls usually are never on their hot side unless they just ate within the past 24hrs. I still give them the appropriate 89-92 hotspot though. I would bump it down a little if it's reading at 94 consistently. I keep my ambient/cool side temps at 80 without problems.

Oh also, what is the size equivalent of medium sized mouse to rat? Should I feed live the first feeding in order to figure out if he is eating well?

This will vary from person to person in terms of opinion, but with my feeders I consider a f/t "medium" mouse (maybe around ~20-30 grams, ie a "small" adult mouse) to be around the same size as a rat pup. Jumbo mice (ex breeders) may be more of a small rat weanling size, and mouse hoppers would be about the same as rat fuzzies, just IMO.

If he's on f/t and you plan to feed f/t I'd try f/t for your first feeding and see how it goes. I offer f/t to my new additions even if they were on live from the breeder. If you plan to feed live then try live, it's up to your feeding preference.