Reversing Stress in BP

[KingWheatley]

Due both in part to being starved and mistreated at the pet store, and mishandling by myself (as a new owner... I made some pretty crucial and stupid mistakes...) my little ball python is probably in a lot of stress.

He is still quite small, being a baby hatched in late August/early June.

His set-up is finally the way it should be.



the big rock has a small plastic flower cup I got from the gardening section that I got the reddish rock thing. The reddish rock thing has a hole in it to crawl into, and it's hollow all the way to the top. So if he wanted to crawl up there, he could. I moniter the temperature every hour when I'm home using the infrared thermometer. The UTH is on a thermostat set at 90, but I've observed the surface temperature going to 93 before I had to manually shut it off, so I don't really trust it.

This morning, while it was still dark, I misted the enclosure with water, then fed Wheatley a large mouse. He seemed to struggle with it a bit, however, he had no further trouble swallowing it.

Ive read that snakes won't eat when stressed, however he still shows signs of distress when I go to handle him.

He does the "S" shape, is very tense (wide body), huffs, and moves to hide.

He doesn't hiss, strike, or hit me with his loops anymore. And recently he's stopped balling up. After I get him up he relaxes and sniffs around, exploring calmly and shows no signs of stress.

(I don't pick him up after he's eaten, although I did move him a bit today because I thought he was in the other hide when I went to pick the one up to spray water under it...)

Im not sure how stressed Wheatley is at this point.

other than the changes I made to the husbandry, and limiting handling (when not digesting) to maximum of 30 mins a day, what else can I do to decrease fear and stress? Will he grow out of it as he gets bigger?

When I pick him up, I let him see my finger first, so not to startle him, then I pet him a little before I pick him up at the girthy part of his body. I have a natural tremor to my hands and bad neurological control, so sometimes my fingers start to jitter, which could be causing some terror to him.