Greetings all.

I'm a first time poster on this forum.

After many years without a reptile in the house, we're setting up for a young ball python.

A quick bit of history, if you don't mind. My wife and I had a boa for 15 years. We got him as a baby, and when we "retired" him (a good thing, putting him out to stud) 20 years ago, he was 10.5 feet long and weighed 60 lbs.

We've had our African Grey parrott (or does she have us?) for about 33 years.

The current saga began a few weeks ago when I was chatting online with Deb (Dalvers63) whom I've known for years. The proud aunt was showing me photos of the recent BP babies.

I made the 'mistake' of showing the photos to my younger son Josh (19 years old) and this got his attention! He's entering his second year of college, and is seriously considering a career in veterinary, or a related field

We stopped by a local pet store so he could see a baby bp, and handle one. As luck would have it, they were cleaning one of the cages, and a small BP was out of the cage, so Josh got to play with it for a while... his first time touching a snake. He was hooked!

So, he got 'snake' lust. I spoke to Deb about this, and rather than take one of the babies, we're going to adopt a young female bp (currently named baby_m) who is nearly a year old (370 grams).

We're setting up for the new arrival, and I think we've got a handle on the necessities, but would appreciate any additional comments and thoughts on the matter before Deb ships the youngster from WA to NJ to her new home.

Already in house:
  • Herpstat thermostat
  • LCD thermometer/hygrometer
  • Tiny digital IR thermometer (considering getting a better one)
  • Water dish
  • Small log cluster from pet store
  • aspen bedding (although we'll probably start with newspaper and see how it goes from there)
  • Hemostat 10"
  • Shoebox size sterilite box for housing during cage cleaning


Arriving in a few days:
  • Reptile Basics 3x2x1' cage
  • UltraTherm UTH mat
  • 2 - Reptile Basics medium hide boxes
  • 35 frozen weanling size rats from The Mouse Factory


Back when we had our boa, our snake wasn't very good at live food, he was bitten a few times. I read a book called "The Keeper and the Kept" by the curator of the reptile collection of the Staten Island Zoo, and he (radically) suggested that snakes actually prefered dead food. In those days there was only one store in anywhere near us that sold frozen rats, a great convenience and our snake thrived on them. It's great to see them readily available these days, and turned into a small online industry!

So, I think we've got things pretty well covered. Josh is paying for most of this himself, so it's a significant investment on his part, which he's making gladly.

He's excited about having everything ready and setup before calling Deb to ship the youngster to us.

Is there anything we're obviously overlooking?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.