Help give me a crash course on ball pythons

[redshepherd]

Definitely keeping that in mind! Hoping to get everything set up and ready weeks in advance before I actually get my bp. How long should I wait to see if my temps and humidity are stable for? I'm guessing if I've managed to keep everything consistent and stable for a week (or two?) then it would be snake ready?

A week is plenty! Honestly, seeing how much research you seem to be doing, if you get all the right equipment, you'll only need a couple days.

Imo almost any snake species (except giants and venomous and a few that are genuinely hard to keep alive in captivity) can be a "first snake" for the right owner who does ALL the necessary research and follows known, correct setups to a T.

The concept of "get a beginners snake first" or even "yes, you can get a 5 foot enclosure for your baby ball python, all you need to do is clutter it up" are both two extremes that I don't agree with. You can get your dream snake as a first snake, but keep things basic and follow known reliable setups, get a hang of controlling temps and humidity in your climate, until you understand the species well enough to change it up.