This is one quirky ball

[pezstar]

When we first got our ball about 5 months ago, she was in rough shape. (Thanks, petco!) Her eyes were dented, she was clearly dehydrated and stressed out, and of course, she wouldn't eat. After awhile in her new habitat with perfect temps, humidity, hiding places, and water availability, she perked up and became a pretty sweet girl. She's a fantastic eater, though with a quirk, and that's why I'm writing this post. This is the story of the Ball that thinks she's arboreal.

When we set up her habitat, amongst her hiding places and water dish, we put in a fake, decorative tree. It looks a bit like this: http://www.petco.com/product/9610/Kr...-Branches.aspx. I'd say that at it's tallest point, it's about 8 inches from the floor of the cage.

Winston loves this tree. She spends much of her time in her hide, of course, but if she's out and about, she's in this tree. She drinks by hanging down from the tree. Most interestingly, she strikes at her prey, as well as eats the rodent, from the tree. Right now, this moment, she's working a mouse down her throat from the tree. Yeah... the whole feeding process is always from the tree.

She's a happy, healthy snake, and her environment is 100% on target for temperature on both sides of the cage, humidity, and everything else you can imagine. We went a little overboard with the habitat and spent far more than was necessary, however the end result is as close to a perfect set up as possible. I really have no reason to believe that she's not using the (ample) floor space of her habitat for eating because of some husbandry issue.

Has anyone else seen this behavior? How common is it?

Other quirks: She enjoys climbing up the rocky wall on the back of her terrarium and flinging herself into her water dish, over and over again. Climb, climb, climb climb, SPLASH, climb climb climb, SPLASH. Silly girl.

-She likes to nip at me. I am 7 months pregnant. She never nips at her co-owner, my boyfriend. Do pregnancy hormones make Balls a bit more aggressive and/or make them think I am food? She definitely prefers him. She taps the glass closest to him when he's peeking in at her.

[littleindiangirl]

Hmm... I've heard about that before, striking from a high area. I don't know if it was on this forum...

The only thing that does concern me is the constant climbing and falling into her dish. I wouldn't let her do this as she gets bigger and older. She could fall onto some cage furniture and seriously hurt herself. Broken ribs, internal injuries, punctures.... even death.

I know it's a downer, but I would take the safety of your animal to heart and not let her climb the wall and fall constantly.

[Fearless]

Wouldn't be to concerned of the climbing thing at all, as stated earlier the falling could lead to problems at some point.

And honestly think its a girl thing, many of my snakes just plain dont like women, not sure if its the part they are scared more frequently and the snake can sense that or if its a heat level thing or what. Never tried to figure it out either.

Maybe the snake can sense the mood swings coming!!

[ChicaPiton519]

i only have a problem with my girl snakes to be honest lol

not just the balls either, my rainbow boa and JCP are the same way...

bleh.

but my boys are fine =] ahha

as for the falling, as she gets older, she will have more balance, my almost 3 year old BP can hold on to my wrist with just enough tail to go around my wrist... just like human babies arnt as balanced as older children...

[BLOCK 213]

I wouldn't worry about the tree climbing, I have a female who, soon after dark climbs up a branch in her viv and stays there during the night. In every other way she acts normally. She doesn't eat up the branch however, she likes to drag her feed into one of her hides.
I would be concerned with her falling from a height, balls are heavy snakes and could easily damage herself
Ken

[Schlyne]

When I kept a ball in a tank, my pastel would spiral up the thermostat cord and hang out on the branch.

[pezstar]

Yeah, Winston does that too. She'll climb up her thermostat cable and just hang from it. We ended up moving it so that was no longer possible. I was afraid she'd hang herself or something.