A few last minute questions!

[Physician&Snakes]

Hi everyone,

Two of my sisters and I are planning to get our first ball pythons this weekend. I’ve been researching like crazy for the past few months, and we just finished building a melamine rack for the 3 snakes this past weekend. Everything is set up, but I have a few questions.

1. The temperatures are ranging from 78-80F on the cool side, and 90-92F in the hide on the warm side (above the heat tape). Humidity is ranging from about 57-59% (I went ahead and filled one of the water bowls to test the humidity, and have not misted at all). These are all being measured with an Acurite thermometer/hydrometer. I know that the recommended humidity is 50-60%, and I’m a little concerned because the humidity is so close to the upper end of the range. Will adding the snake make the humidity in the bin go up? What level of humidity is actually too much?

As long as it is not drifting into the high 80s+ for extremely long periods of time, you should be fine.


2. Is it a problem to buy snakes from different breeders at the same time (quarantine-wise)? We’re hoping to purchase all three balls from the same breeder, but obviously won’t decide until we get there.

It can be riskier yes, but it is far from taboo or uncommon. I always keep a bottle of mite spray in the car so I can give new pickups a quick squirt before even heading home. Once home I weigh any new BPs, wipe them down with a touch more spray then straight to quarantine. Examine every animal personally before sliding money across the table and some portable hand sanitizer never hurts.

3. Since we’re new to snakes and we haven’t handled snakes much, do you think it would be a good idea to have a snake hook on hand (probably for peace of mind more than anything else)?

This is more my opinion than necessarily a direct answer, I would say no. With the species generally maxing out at around 5ft, adults and most children 10+ are threatened very little by the most aggressive ball and since you are acquiring three specimens I am going to guess you plan on breeding and/or extending your collection in the near future, if so it is very important that you become accustomed to direct contact with the animal so if you think you will end up using the hook as a "crutch" then do not get it. In all honesty, I would never approach an aggressive non-venomous snake with a hook simply because that's an easy mouth injury, I would use a nice thick roll of paper towels and someone within the room for back up if the specimen was over 9ft. I use my hook primarily for conditioning purposes with my retics, they see the hook and know it's not feeding time, no hook and open cage=food. You can do this with just about any recognizable object for your BPs if you want.

4. Have you ever had a ball python strike at you and not let go? When I was researching sand boas, I read somewhere that having bitter apple spray on hand isn’t a bad idea in case of this happening. I haven’t heard anything like this mentioned on BP.net, and I’m wondering if it’s entirely unnecessary (for either ball pythons or snakes in general).

Had a big 5ft female breeder latch onto me once, just took a few seconds under cold water to get her out of "feed mode". I think Bitter Apple was designed for mammalian pets so I would at least give customer service a call before I though of using it on a snake. Other keepers will use an alcohol soaked rag and various other strong smelling substances.

5. We have two thermostats – a Herpstat 1, and a Hydrofarm that we’re using as a backup (the Herpstat is plugged into the Hydrofarm). I currently have the Herpstat set at 92F, and the Hydrofarm set at 95. I believe that the Hydrofarm one shuts off when the temps reach 2 degrees over the set temperature (so it would shut off at 97, correct?). If my notes are correct, the maximum temp for a ball python is 95F, so the Hydrofarm should be set to 93F, right?

I am new to thermostats so due bear with me, I would not combine thermostats because a T-stat is designed to monitor a heating device, not another monitoring system. I would put the Hydrofarm to the side in case the Herpstat malfunctions suddenly...if you want to experiment with thermostat on thermostat on a test run then I guess the only backlash could be hurting one or both systems, working, or having no effect...before I tried it I would give Spyderrobotics a call and check.

I think that’s all for now

See bolded.