Clumsy bp.

[gen]

Someone mentioned clumsy ball pythons, and you shouldn't have anything too high for them to climb on because they fall. I have a climbing branch, but Norbert rarely uses it. Instead he works his way up the side of the rubbermaid to the top and squeezes himself into the small space between the rim of the rubbermaid and the lid. There's about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch of space there. It's kinda hard to explain, I'll try to take a picture next time he does it. He's trying to get out I'm sure. I have it secured very well, so I know he can't get out, but he keeps falling down from there! It scares the heck out of me. I'll hear a thump, or sometimes I actually see him fall, and he looks okay afterward, but I'm scared he might hurt himself. The rubbermaid is about 13 inches high. Should I get a different container where he can't work himself into a space up there?

[gozetec02]

My little ball python does that. And he falls everyonce in a while but its only 6" high. I got that 90qt sterilite vor my oldest bp Jojo and he has a branch but never ever uses it. I am actually thinking of puting him in one of those underbed storage boxes. But ball pythons are adapt climbers but still they are no Green Tree Python although they like to pretend.

[First_time_herp]

although they like to pretend.

LOL

And as long as he dosn't fall from too hight he should be fine, but just in case I'd get a cage that wasn't so high.

[Marla]

You could just stick a pillow under him.

[firedragon]

My two corn snakes do exactly that all of the time, and it has never hurt them.. you could make sure he falls on "soft" substrate (whatever you use) and not on hard waterbowls, branches etc. Maybe I'm overestimating their intelligence, but I figure it doesn't hurt them since they do it over and over again.

[elevatethis]

I think you might be. Animals generally have a much higher threshold for pain than we as humans do. Per my intro psych class, this is attributed to the fact that when our bodies are injured and we feel pain, we have a cognitive understanding of what is actually going on. We know our bodies have been damaged. Lesser intelligent animals, such as snakes, don't have this cognition and don't really understand that the pain they feel is directly related to some bodily injury, but more related to an activity. This is why snakes might become afraid of a certain kind of prey item, or go off feed. They associate Food ---> pain, not what actually happened, which was Rat ----> bite.

However, they are do have the capacity for classical conditioning. For example, successful human interaction lets them associate us with no harm, thus a tame snake is the result. Or, if climbing results in an undesireable result, such as falling and subsequent pain, they will not climb anymore. Perhaps falling like that doesn't hurt them, so they keep doing it.

[gen]

I caught my naughty boy climbing up the top of his rubbermaid today. I put him down, and he climbs right back up again. Here is a picture.

[JLC]

Hehe...VERY cool picture, Gen!

[daftperception]

why don't you rig you're rubermaid so that it doesn't have that space anymore like tape it up or something my bps kinda do the same thing they climb up the glass and loose balance and flop to the ground but they basically stoped.

[green_man]

Gen, One of my ball pythons does the exact same thing