New ball python owner, need help and advice

[Zincubus]

Hello everyone, I'm a new ball python owner and I think I'm having some trouble and need help. My BP is a male, about full size (3.5-4ft), got him from a friend who wasn't able to take care of him anymore. When I first got him, he was suprisingly calm, not stressed at all, and acclimated well to his new home which was a gigantic terrarium. He was always in his hides, he handled well, just a good calm snake. I wasn't able to maintain decent temp and humidity so I downsized his tank on thanksgiving (not too too small, pet store employee helped me pick it out). Ever since then he's been acting strange... Temp is about 85, humidity about 55%-60% during the day and 80-85 and 50% at night. He ate on thanksgiving for the first time with me then I put him in his new home. He moves during a day quite a bit, he doesn't stay on his hides, I offen find him moving his water dish, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Maybe he's just getting used to the new tank. Any advice/feedback? It would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the lengthy post!!

Righty given that he's so active even throughout the day ( they are nocturnal and are usually asleep at that time ) and given you're been conned into buying those stick on temp gauges which are unreliable at best ( for ambient temps ) and completely useless for giving the surface temps on warm and cool sides ...I'd guess that he's far too hot and simply trying to escape to a cooler area .

If they're recording 85F on the side of the tank the surface temps could be well over a 100 ...who l knows ..


As mentioned above , maybe the enclosure could be somewhat larger but just for the moment I'd unplug and even remove the lamp/s for starters and unplug the heat mat under the cool side and just keep the heat mat under the warm side for now. That will at least give him a cool area ... Next I'd get an affordable thermostat to regulate the heat mat under the warm side and get on eBay to buy a cheap digital temp gun for around 8 to 12 dollars .... Something like the one below - the make doesn't matter they're all reasonably accurate and reliable ..

Good luck !!


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