A note on ball python cage sizes - lessons from Germany

[JodanOrNoDan]

Every species has its own requirements to thrive. When pets are purchased one has to make sure that the pet's requirements can be willingly met by the owner. I like fat lazy snakes. They are easy for me to provide for and keep in numbers. I have many times thought about keeping bloods. Another fat lazy animal, but their temperature requirements are different than balls and I am unwilling to change up my reptile room to accommodate them. If I was a hot keeper, I would probably focus on gaboons, another animal that does not move much. So with balls, it is pretty cut and dried to me. They meet my needs, I meet theirs. Someday, maybe this year after I sell off this years clutches, I am going to set up a "natural" environment for a male and female ball in order to observe how they react with a simulated natural cycle. This is one of those things I would never advise a beginner to do. They could be down to a single snake in short order or end up with two snakes going off food and getting sick.

I have kept a few other species of reptile over the years. Corn snakes being the easiest. The most elaborate being my adult iguana setups. Room sized cages for these guys with plenty of stuff to keep them busy.

Currently there is a bearded dragon in my house. He is not kept in a tub. He has a relatively large terrarium with stuff to dig and stuff to climb on. He appears to enjoy interaction. This is not an animal I would keep in a confined environment, but I only have one so my sample size is a little small.

I also have a Russian tortoise that my daughter just had to have. I know better but my daughter is hard to argue with (any father with a little girl knows what I mean). I honestly don't believe these things should be kept as pets. I have yet to make this animal "happy" even though I have had it going on five years and it is very healthy.

Short story is, I know I don't know everything. I always like new data and am willing to adjust accordingly. My next experiment is going to be feeding males birds. I just ordered some frozen quail. Many males in the wild according to one study were found to be eating birds, so I'm going to try it. Maybe, it will stimulate some of my males into eating more often. Maybe not.

Once I have my "natural" enclosure up, I am going to be doing what I am calling the "Zinc" experiment. I am going to see if I can the animals to climb to get a bird.

[Regius_049]

Every species has its own requirements to thrive. When pets are purchased one has to make sure that the pet's requirements can be willingly met by the owner. I like fat lazy snakes. They are easy for me to provide for and keep in numbers. I have many times thought about keeping bloods. Another fat lazy animal, but their temperature requirements are different than balls and I am unwilling to change up my reptile room to accommodate them. If I was a hot keeper, I would probably focus on gaboons, another animal that does not move much. So with balls, it is pretty cut and dried to me. They meet my needs, I meet theirs. Someday, maybe this year after I sell off this years clutches, I am going to set up a "natural" environment for a male and female ball in order to observe how they react with a simulated natural cycle. This is one of those things I would never advise a beginner to do. They could be down to a single snake in short order or end up with two snakes going off food and getting sick.

I see the merit in this approach. Pragmatism coupled with lower cost is likely to see easier adoption of the proposed methods than an endeavor which is more costly in terms of money and space. The conventional tub/UTH/thermostat method is also arguably the easiest to implement. It would be interesting to have some sort of comparison of relatively inexperienced keepers using tubs/racks vs. larger plastic enclosures and their success rates. While there is a train of thought that reptiles adapt poorly to changing enclosures, I suspect that there is something to be said for what animals are raised in. In a similar vein to the previous poster, a ball python raised in a 4' x 2' enclosure may find that to be more desirable than a tub and react poorly when switched to a tub and vice versa. I would not consider glass enclosures to be of interest in such an experiment however. I am generally of the opinion that unless heavily modified to feel more "enclosed", glass terrariums are a poor choice (not to to mention their poor insulative properties).

In regards to your "natural" setup, it would be an interesting experiment. I have never personally housed two ball pythons together, but with some care, I suspect it could be done. Contact with conspecifics generally goes one of two ways: (1) one animal is bullied to the point of stress, or (2) enrichment is provided with a happy balance established. As a point of interest, there was a study done in juvenile chameleons where young were raised alone and in small groups. The animal raised in small groups had a high prevalence of "bold" behavior and more vibrant coloration. The authors suggested that a form of healthy competition was present in the group settings and this allowed the young chameleons to grow stronger and more confident.

Short story is, I know I don't know everything. I always like new data and am willing to adjust accordingly. My next experiment is going to be feeding males birds. I just ordered some frozen quail. Many males in the wild according to one study were found to be eating birds, so I'm going to try it. Maybe, it will stimulate some of my males into eating more often. Maybe not.

Once I have my "natural" enclosure up, I am going to be doing what I am calling the "Zinc" experiment. I am going to see if I can the animals to climb to get a bird.

I suspect your experiment in this regard to be a success. From what I have read, ball pythons are very opportunistic hunters and while rodents comprise the majority of their diet, wild ball pythons have been documented to consume anything from birds to fish to other reptiles and amphibians. However, captive specimens that have no been exposed to such prey items may have to have a few scented meals before recognizing it as prey, but would be willing to hunt down anything they come to recognize as a food item. I believe I also read a report that young ball pythons had been found and caught in limbs of smaller plants and lower tree branches suggesting that while they may be primarily terrestrial, they do climb.

In a study of captive raised indigo snakes, observers concluded that diet diversity almost promoted growth and vigor among growing snakes. The diet does not have to be hugely varied for observable effect. The mention that "three genera of prey items yield optimum growth rates". I have also heard it said that a more natural environment improves feeding response in ball pythons and other snake species, but I have not seen any particularly convincing studies to back up this claim. It is possible that a more natural or cluttered environment triggers exploratory behavior which may correlate to hunting behavior and thus improve appetite, but at this point in my "reptile career" this is mainly conjecture.