*New girl and setup*

[gibbrishclown]

Hey guys, I just got a new female 06 at the expo today... I got her a 27g aquarium with a screen top and a large enough heating pad to warm the warm side to (currently) 91 without the accurite probe being taped down to the carpet, so I guess that's just air temp in that particular hide (where I anticipated she'd be most of the time) I grabbed 2 rather good sized plastic potting pots and cut holes in the bottoms for her to get through and used them for matching hides. There is also a large grapewood branch with some damp moss on it between the warm hide and the other hide and then beyond the cooler hide is the big water bowl (not really alot of slither room on the ground as much as I'd hoped (problem?) Anyway she's wedged herself under and behind the branch and hasn't appeared to notice the hides and how to get in them. How do I encourage her to go in these hides?

I also tried to feed her this evening but she refused. I am sure she is stressed from the days' events, but y'all should have seen her as we passed a large stand of live rodents! She went nuts! She was fed live, but was supposedly a great feeder that the seller thought could be convinced to go to f/t, any and all input on how to go about this would be much appreciated. I was told that they'd skipped feeding day because of the show and stuff... when would be a good time to try feeding her again?

She's not really settled down yet in her tank and usually tries to come out when I put her back in. The screen top that came with the tank makes me nervous although it fits tightly around the brim of the tank... she's pretty strong, and I sure have a lot of interested predators.... it's just your standard esu reptile tank topper screen top from the good people at glasscages... I think I'll keep something heavy on top just in case, even though it feels like a pretty secure fit... is it supposed to be enough or do I need clips of some sort?

Well... here she is again... I didn't have any questions yet so I just put her on the show thread for the show I got her at ...no name yet

[gibbrishclown]

front view
cool side view
a top view of her

[dr del]

Hi there,



First impressions? for my tastes your hides and water container are too big - the hides should really be snug on all sides including the top if possible. The water container I find works best is generally a dog bowl with straight sides or sloped metal with the widest part at the bottom as they seem to tip those over less - they can be right little madams when the mood takes them for destroying your tank.

Emergency hides can be made out of ice cream cartons washed and with a hole cut in them - and of course it's a wonderfull excuse to buy ( and eat) two cartons of icecream.

The smaller hides and waterbowl would also give you more slither room but to avoid this making her feel a little exposed you could maybe cover the back and sides of the tank with aquarium background or something?

I would also suggest putting the hides at either end and the waterbowl between them as this gives the snake the largest temp gradient for most forms of heating.

On the lid thing, yeah they are amazingly strong for their size so you can't really rely on just the weight of the lid most of the time. A lot of people use luggage straps as emergency locks untill they get something a little more permanent set up. If you choose to put somthing heavy on top remember to balance it out at both ends or it can actually make it easier to get open not harder.

As for the feeding I don't think it would hurt to wait the week or so to give her time to adjust to her new surroundings as she looks to be a good weight. ( and cute - did I mention cute?)


What are you using to control the heatpad to make sure it doesn't get too warm for her?

Hope some of this rambling will be of use to you.



dr del

[Wild Bill]

Does your screen lid have clips to hold it down? If not, you definitely will want to keep something heavy on each end to keep the lid down. You will also want to cover most of your screen lid with some platic or something to help keep in the humidity.


Here is a great link to setting up a glass aquarium for the care of ball pythons.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=32800

[Holbeird]

pretty new girl you got there, i dont have much to add that others haven't already! She's pretty though, which booth did you get her at, and without being too nosey, how much? I'll be at the show tomorrow (Sunday) and I'm curious who I might should be talking to

[Blu Mongoose]

Nice new girl.

[GOLGO 13]

A very unique set-up.
The entrance of the shelter!

[gibbrishclown]

pretty new girl you got there, i dont have much to add that others haven't already! She's pretty though, which booth did you get her at, and without being too nosey, how much? I'll be at the show tomorrow (Sunday) and I'm curious who I might should be talking to

She's from Schnellers. They are going to stick more to redlines and the like and he's selling off his ball pythons. I'm sure if you talk to AJ he'll tell you all about what he's got. I really like them and was glad to get a snake from them even though they didn't breed her, they got her at last year's show and were going to breed her I guess before their focus shifted. She was $75. (fair?)

Dr. Del. I did get hides too big, but she found her way in to them last night. She is curled up and being touched on all sides at the bottom. She's also almost 3 feet long ( didn't measure, just a guess) which is what caused me to exaggerate teh hide size. Thankfully they're waaay cheap and easily made,... I'll just go get the next size down. I'm not currently doing anything to regulate that heating pad, but my warm end has stayed at 91-92... I'm still in the process of getting a t-stat. Maybe at the show today? I bought a 2 day ticket!

I'm also going to come up with something to hold that lid on better. I woke up every couple hours last night and looked to see she was still there (of course I got up at 6:30 too because it felt like Christmas and I was so excited LOL) she did push the lid a bit and test it (no luck for her yet) and she made me nervous because there's a divider in the top of the tank and she got her head betweent that and the screen top and I just had 2 damn dogs get their heads stuck under the fence in the same spot, so I'm a bit sensitive to getting heads stuck places right now LOL.. (the dogs are fine!)

Golgo... she did eventually figure out the hide, but I do agree that maybe just because that was the easier place to make an entrance that maybe it wasn't necessarily the best place for it... I just keep thinking in the wild that they would have stranger accomodations... but then again maybe it gets no stranger than me

Thanks guys for looking at her. She's so perfect to me. I'm not hard core into morphs, but she looks different enough to me that I feel I got a steal... and that's all that really matters right? My neighbor went nuts looking at a pastel at the show... he was $500 and my neighbor thought mine was a pastel (I know she isn't, but she did look a lot like that pastel)

It was so exciting! My boy wanted another corn snake and he was just about to give up when one came by on a guy's arm... a nice butterscotch amel (according to the vet we took him by there)... got him for $30 @ 3+ feet long... slim even for a male, but they said he ate rat pups! I fed him a small mouse yesterday and that looked like a proper fit... maybe he would have liked 2 because he was cruising around his tank a bit, but it was all so new to him... I'm glad my buddy got him because it eats f/t and I just sent home a leftover rat pup to his big corn that was f/t and he ate it... I'm hoping to get him switched over *rubs hands together at evil plot* LOL

[GOLGO 13]

Golgo... she did eventually figure out the hide, but I do agree that maybe just because that was the easier place to make an entrance that maybe it wasn't necessarily the best place for it... I just keep thinking in the wild that they would have stranger accomodations... but then again maybe it gets no stranger than me

I think what you mentioned is all right, I agree with you.

I have seen them in the wild on TV program and then they acctually lived in a cave with many others together. Some of them hid at very unusual place.
They lived in very dark cave.
Your set-up is something special.
I am using a bird`s wodden nest for my BP and she likes it!

[dr del]

she did push the lid a bit and test it (no luck for her yet) and she made me nervous because there's a divider in the top of the tank and she got her head betweent that and the screen top and I just had 2 damn dogs get their heads stuck under the fence in the same spot, so I'm a bit sensitive to getting heads stuck places right now LOL.. (the dogs are fine!)

.............

Golgo... she did eventually figure out the hide, but I do agree that maybe just because that was the easier place to make an entrance that maybe it wasn't necessarily the best place for it... I just keep thinking in the wild that they would have stranger accomodations... but then again maybe it gets no stranger than me

Hi again,

Yeah they do like to test everything in a new tank. The divider (flat spar of glass right?) is only really needed for strength in water filled aquaria so if it looks like it is going to cause problems you can just remove it using a stanley blade to peel off the silicon (please watch your fingers ). I also like to pack the ledge between the lid and the other ledge of glass at the top of the tank to prevent them jamming themselves in there and falling off or forcing the lid off.

And I'm glad to hear your dogs are O.K.


On the hide thing I think they seem to prefer top opening hides ( well my little one certainly does) so I'm trying to work out how to get some for the older pythons - naturally I am getting myself all paranoid they will try and come back out before they are all the way in and get stuck so am trying to think of a solution for that too.

Your little girl does have some lovely flames.



dr del