never owned a snake before, really wanting to get a royal python... answers please

[Daigga]

thanks for everybodys opinion but yes I am really set on a ball python, and i'm not a little kid here lol, I want a bigger snake because as I said in my original post I don't like to handle small things, I'm a big guy and I feel like I hurt smaller things without knowing it lol, I rather a boa but being its my first snake after all the researching I have done I decided on a royal, so I just thought I come here and get some great tips and advice from people who know how to care for them.

I totally understand shying away from anything small. I'm a little girl (size wise, anyway), and any lizard smaller than a beardie doesn't interest me at all, and I can't imagine owning a snake whose adult size is smaller than 2 feet. That being said, you'll be looking at a premium for an actual adult BP's, and most of your options are going to be normals. Nothing wrong with a normal, of course, but if you're interested in variety I'd go for a snake around a year old. Here are some pictures of mine to compare size (mentioning that all snakes grow at different rates);

This is a baby ball, a few months old at best (George is a 2014, the breeder wasn't specific on what month she hatched out). At about 100g, she's very small, probably what it sounds like you're trying to avoid. This is about the size most pet stores will sell BPs at, maybe a bit bigger or smaller;


This is what a BP looks at when they're around a year old. Gio was around 600g when this picture was taken, though my other two yearlings were acquired at about 500, so I would say a yearling is about 5 times the size of a hatchling. I'm very delicate with george, but Gio and the other girls are sturdy.


Lastly we have the adult size. Miranda is a good sized adult BP, just a bit shy of 2000g at the time of this picture. Her size might fluctuate a bit as she goes to lay eggs and whatnot, but on average this is about the size you would expect an adult ball python to reach.


For comparrison sake, george would weigh about a quarter pound and you could easily touch your fingers together around her thickest part (with overlap), a yearling is about a pound (my fingers can't quite touch around the thickest part. Small girl problems), and an adult comes in at a whopping 4(ish) pounds, and thicker around at the thickest than the averages mans wrist. If you want a glass tank, a 40 gallon tank from the petstore should work fine (reptile is best, fish tanks are too tall and thin). Otherwise just paying close attention to the caresheets and advice here is really helpful.