Snakes

[Violently Violet]

Hiya! I couldn’t resist and finally bought a banana ball python, I purchased him at two years old and he was placed in a soft bag in order for me to bring him home. I using a heat mat connected to a thermostat that’s placing it consistently in the 29-30c heat range and buried under a good layer of hemp substrate but I will be moving him to aspen at the next clean, I don’t have a way to measure humidity but he has a very large water bowl that’s constantly full and I spray his viv twice a day for extra water. I brought him home yesterday and so far he’s had a good explore and sleeps happily under his hide, I had a little bit of tail thumping when I tried to take a photo of him but that’s relatively expected.

Overall I was wondering how long do you think I should leave him in total before handling? Currently he’s had a full day to get used to his tank and I’ve seen answers ranging from a day to two weeks. I’ve also had people say that I should feed him first before handling him, however with my corn I waited 3 days and fed him the week after and he has a massive attitude but I think that’s just him.

As well as this (sorry I have a lot of questions lmao) when I held him in the store he seemed super relaxed and happily coiled around my arm, but I am a little worried regarding handling. I’m a pretty short person and his viv is sat on top of my chest of drawers, I’m worried regarding his viv being in open view of my door so the comings and goings of people have a possibility to stress him out, would this have a large effect on him or would he help him become accustomed to humans? As well as this, since the viv is relatively high up it is at arm length for me, meaning I have to pick him up by going straight for him rather than from above, I’m a little worried this could cause him to strike.

Any advice would be great and I’ll try and post pictures once he’s settled in a little, different morphs of ball python are relatively hard to come by where I live without a two hour drive, and I’ve always wanted a banana ball python so finding him at my local store was pretty lucky. Im either naming him Mars or Bowser and I’m so excited to start handling him, I love how relaxed they are.

Congrats on your new noodle!

You want your heat pad and probe in this order from top to bottom: Substrate, glass, probe, heat pad. You want the heat pad under the glass, and the probe sandwitched inbetween. You also want the hotspot set to about 90f, or 32c. You will also want to account for the heat that might be lost through the glass.

You need a temp gun to measure the surface temp. You want to measure it on the surface of the glass, not the substrate, as the snaje will move the substrate to get to the heat.

You also want a thermometer/hygrometer. A thermostat can not be in place of a thermometer. I use this one;

https://www.amazon.com/AcuRite-02067M-T ... rite+probe

AcuRite is a trusted and accurate brand. This particular one you place on the cool side and put the probe on the hot side, monitoring both cool and hot temps as well as humidity. You need to measure humidity, especially in a tank, or your snake might end up with stuck shed.

Do not handle him for a week, then do not handle him until he's eaten once. Make sure not to handle him within 48 hours of him eating, or he could regurgitate.

Cover 3 of the 4 sides of the tank with paper or something similar. I use black card. This will make him feel more secure as he isn't being watched from every angle.

When going to pick him up, speak softly so he knows you're there. I would tap around his environment a little bit as you near him so he knows you're going to physically touch him. If he's in his hide, tap the hide a few times, lift it up once, then tap it again and lift it then scoop him out. Eventually he might assosiate this tapping with handling, and I would think it snaps them out of food mode. You want to make sure he knows what to expect. Ball pythons usually prefer curling up defensively to striking.

I wish you good luck and a happy 20+ years with your ball python!

[Jones.]

Thank you for your advice, I do have a thermometer as well as a thermostat that has the probe placed on his heat mat under the substrate, I’ve also ordered a hygrometer which was this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0792W ... UTF8&psc=1

His viv is made of incredibly dark wood (walnut I think?) so is pretty dark anyway and then I just have the two glass sliding doors with a lock on so he can’t open it.

As for the handling that is extremely helpful and probably should have occurred to me before as its roughly similar with horses c’: Waiting a whole week seems a little impossible to do and I read somewhere that because he’s a little older (2 years) he might be more accustomed to settling in and handling quicker since he’s moved about before, would this be true?

I’ve also read that it’s recommended to feed ball pythons out of their vivs, how true would this be?

Thank you for your help!

[Violently Violet]

Thank you for your advice, I do have a thermometer as well as a thermostat that has the probe placed on his heat mat under the substrate, I’ve also ordered a hygrometer which was this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0792W ... UTF8&psc=1

His viv is made of incredibly dark wood (walnut I think?) so is pretty dark anyway and then I just have the two glass sliding doors with a lock on so he can’t open it.

As for the handling that is extremely helpful and probably should have occurred to me before as its roughly similar with horses c’: Waiting a whole week seems a little impossible to do and I read somewhere that because he’s a little older (2 years) he might be more accustomed to settling in and handling quicker since he’s moved about before, would this be true?

I’ve also read that it’s recommended to feed ball pythons out of their vivs, how true would this be?

Thank you for your help!

Ah, yes, sorry I assumed you didn't have a thermometer. And assumed you had a glass tank haha

I was the same when I was told to wait a whole week. It does feel impossible, but remember that you will have 20+ years with your snake where you will be able to handle him. I've never heard that you can wait less if they're older, so i can't speak on that. Remember that ball pythons can be notoriously hard to feed, and if you don't wait at least a week, he will be stressed and might not eat. I suppose it's up to you, though.

As for feeding outside the enclosure, that's a method that does more harm than good.

The reasoning for feeding outside if the enclosure is that the snake will associate the opening of the enclosure with food, and become aggresive. However, this is not true.

Transferring the animal to a feeding tub will 1. Possibly make the snake defensive and stressed and kick him out of food mode, 2. Associate being taken out of the enclosure with feeding 3. When you move the snake back into the eclosure he will be in food mode and more likely to bite you and 4. When the snake is picked up and moved back to the enclosure, there is a high chance he will regurgitate.

This is why I like the tapping method, because they should get used to it and get kicked out of food mode before handling, I'd think.

Plenty of people feed inside the enclosure, including me, and have never had problems with aggression. I would advise against feeding outside of the enclosure.

[catra]

i personally feed my bp outside of his enclosure because he eats live and sometimes it can get pretty messy (mouse pee/poop, blood) and i can just rinse the container out and put him back into his clean enclosure

[Jones.]

I've always fed my corn inside his enclosure and the only time he's tried to strike me is defensively so I'll probably stick to doing the same thing, especially since he'll be feeding from thawed as opposed to live. Since he's already 2 he's on small rats already so buying them and putting them in with my corn snakes fluffs really showed the size difference lmao

But I'll definitely leave him a week and feed him before handling, just to be sure, assuming it'll be fine to change his water and spot check and things. The only reason I didn't buy a ball first was because I heard they can be annoying with their food, luckily the store fed him on thawed so I'm hoping he'll accept these just as well.

Thank you all for your help, as soon as he's settled in I plan on taking a million photos of him. He still doesn't have a named though, I've narrowed it down to Ares, Mars or Bowser, he's just a typical banana morph so what name do you think would suit him best?

He keeps knocking stuff over in his viv so I just went to set it back up and he decided to strike at me already, I'm starting to think snakes just dont like me lmao

[Ritsu]

I have a really sweet ball python. He's a few years old and has only been fed live.
I would love to switch him over to frozen mice ,since he still has bite scars from when I got him, and I'm scared that he'll end up getting hurt again from mice biting him.
I do always watch over him when he eats, just to make sure, but I'd feel a lot better if I could just avoid the risk altogether.

The biggest problem is that he is a notoriously picky eater. I've tried to switch him over a few times, but he just seems to refuse eating altogether.

Any help on getting him to switch would be greatly appreciated.

[Violently Violet]

I have a really sweet ball python. He's a few years old and has only been fed live.
I would love to switch him over to frozen mice ,since he still has bite scars from when I got him, and I'm scared that he'll end up getting hurt again from mice biting him.
I do always watch over him when he eats, just to make sure, but I'd feel a lot better if I could just avoid the risk altogether.

The biggest problem is that he is a notoriously picky eater. I've tried to switch him over a few times, but he just seems to refuse eating altogether.

Any help on getting him to switch would be greatly appreciated.

First, if he's a few years old I would recommend switching him to rats instead of mice. At that age you have to feed multiple mice, or 1 rat, so rats are cheaper in the long run if you have to buy multiple mice vs 1 rat. Lots of people feed mice, though, so you can do what you'd like, it's just my suggestion.

I switched my ball python from live to f/t within two tries, and that's because I did it wrong the first time. Here's what I did step-by-step.

*Put frozen rat in zip lock bag, then into warm water and weighed down with tongs.
*Switched off all lights in the room (yes, everything after this was done in the dark, it's fine if you know where everything is.)
*Waited 30 minutes, changed water.
*Waited 30 minutes, took thawed rat out of bag and placed on snake's screen lid for 30 minutes to pre-scent.
*Warmed it with a hairdryer.
*Offered it with tongs, and he struck!
*Once he had it, I placed a blanket over his cage and left the lights off for the rest of the night.

I wish you good luck!

[kivr & fireflii]

First thing is to double check his husbandry. Incorrect husbandry is one of the biggest reasons they'll go off feed. They need appropriate temperatures and humidity to digest properly. Ideally, you want about 90F hot spot, 85F warm ambient, 80F cool ambient, and around 60% humidity. Be sure you're measuring them with digital tools (digital thermometer/hygrometer, temperature gun). Analog/dial/pet store ones that stick on the side are often inaccurate (and they can lose their stick, get stuck on the snake, and rip scales). Second thing to check is to make sure there's enough hides and clutter to make the snake feel secure. The digestion process (24-48 hours) leaves them vulnerable, so if they feel exposed, they may choose not to eat. Third thing is feeder size/type. If you fed mice and you're trying rats, that could be one reason. If the feeder is too big, that might also be why he's not taking.

Lastly, for the actual switching of live to f/t, generally, what I notice when snakes won't switch from live to f/t happens is that there's one (or more) of three factors that are "missing" in a f/t that a live or pre-killed feeder has:

1. The temperature isn't hot enough. A live rat/mouse's body temperature is about 100F. Depending on the way you heat, or how long, it may not be getting hot enough.
2. The f/t feeder doesn't look like prey. For example, if you're holding the f/t by the tail and dangling it, that looks really weird versus a mouse/rat that's crouched on the ground. Likewise, a feeder that's still and not moving at all may not register as prey if it's not moving (even if slightly).
3. The f/t feeder doesn't smell like food. If your f/t has been frozen for awhile or the bedding it used when it was alive isn't very absorbent, your feeder may not smell like a rat or mouse. Scenting your feeder with recently used, smelly, bedding can help a lot.

Those are the main three things to look at and consider. If it helps, these are the EXACT steps I did that finally got mine to switch from live to f/t:

I put my feeder in a sandwich bag, and I move it from the freezer to the fridge 24hr before feeding. I always feed at night right before lights out (so they eat in the dark), so basically I move it the night before feeding day. I don't handle my snake at all during the day of feeding. Then, when I'm ready to feed, I put some recently used, smelly bedding into the bag with the feeder. In my experience, pellet bedding smell a lot more than something like Carefresh bedding for example (the colorful paper bedding popularly used at places like Petsmart or Petco). If you smell the bedding, and it S M E L L S, that's exactly what you want. You can typically get some free bedding from a pet store or exotic store as long as you explain that you need it to help switch your snake from live to f/t. Don't put a tiny bit when you put some in the bag, but fill it quite a bit (probably enough to cover at least half of the feeder's body).

Then I get a cup of water and heat it in the microwave for 1min + 10sec. I do this to get the water HOT because my sink sucks. If your sink gets the water hot, that's fine. HOT water is good. BOILING water is not (and if you use the microwave like me, JUST use it to heat the water, do NOT use a microwave to heat your feeder because it can explode!). Then, with my hot cup of water, I put the bag (with the feeder + bedding) in the water and submerge it (like with another cup) for 20 minutes. If you think the water is too cool, you can refresh it with more hot water. I haven't needed to do so, though.

I don't do this anymore, but when I was first switching over, I would dry the feeder after heating it for 20 minutes. One of mine didn't like the feeders wet (doesn't care now). You can also hit it on the head and/or belly (typically where most of the blood is, so it's warmer) with a blow dryer on low for about 5 seconds if you think it's still not hot enough.

After it's heated, I grip the feeder behind the shoulders with feeding tongs. I hold it in front of the snake's head (not touching) and SLIGHTLY shake/move the feeder as if it's alive (commonly called "zombie dancing"). I personally imagine it like shivering (the tiny "shivers" mice do) or "foraging" for food. You don't want to be swinging your feeder all around the enclosure, moving it too quickly, etc. It should move enough to look alive, but still easy enough to strike at.

That's what ultimately got mine to switch from live to f/t. These days I don't need to scent it, and I don't use the blow dryer. They're well acclimated to f/t so I don't need to do extra things to entice their feeding response (although once yours is switched over, you can still do that). If they don't strike after about 2-3 minutes, then I'll set the feeder down in front of the snake/hide its in and leave. If that happens, I check every 10 or so minutes to see if it's gone. You can leave it overnight (8-12 hours at most, never more than that), as some snakes will only eat after lights out, but with my personal snakes I found if they don't eat it within about 20-30 minutes, the feeder is just going to cool, and they won't eat it.

A varied feeding schedule also helps. For example, if you currently feed on a fixed schedule of every 10 days, it may help to randomize it a bit. For example, 8 days, 10 days, 9 days, 9 days, etc. It can help put your snake in the "mindset" (if we can call it that) of not knowing when food is coming, so it encourages them to eat whatever meal comes to them.

Big thing to keep in mind while trying to switch them over is ~watching their weight~. You can use a digital scale to keep track of their weight, say, every week (like a day or two before feeding). If they're not losing weight, it's okay to keep trying to switch your snake over. But if they are, you may want to try 3 or so f/t attempts and then 1 live (after all, you want to entice them to switch, but you don't want them to starve!). Just be sure you're feeding them on their normal schedule (or their varied schedule), even if they don't take the f/t. If you try to feed too often (like every day, every 2 days, etc.), it can stress them out even more.
-fireflii

[~Tornado~]

Snake update been a long time since I've talked on here, I'm currently doing something against all of prior snake rules. Moving one of my cohabbed snakes to feed pff.

So we got two Elaphe Schrenckii (Russian Rat Snakes) possible the best snake species you can get, they're half sisters and are only a few montsh old, but are doing great, and have perfect sheds and are growing quickly. I just got them out of their quarantine tanks, and have a 20 gallon long all set up and enriching with a uvb light (and no heat oddly enough the highest temperature they like is 83 degrees F, the current temperatures are perfect for them) and we introduced the two of them and they are currently living together, they do this little twitching movement found in many rat snakes, but more prevalent in E. Schrenckii as communication, and they're climbing around and tunneling in aspen. Well mostly they're hiding right now, they're tiny little nervous babies, but they're already so curious and can obviously see better and are smarter than my other snakes. But they'll grow up to be active fearless and adventurous adults, and they're honestly so amazing.

So yes they are a cohabbale species one male with females or even better multiple females are fine, and they are diurnal, have fast metobolisms and low temperatures compared to most snakes, I just adore them!

Also upgraded my milksnakes enclosure to a 40 breeder, bought two 50 gallon tubs for the ball pythons have yet to set them up yet, they've outgrown their current set ups ooaf, milk snake is also on a diet, because she's a chunkster, all are eating, all are shedding, and I got my first real bite, via Gilan the food loving ball python, do to a mistake on my part sticking my warm rat smelling hand in front of his hide to lift it up. Pro tip: Don't do that
He held on for awhile and it hurt a bit, but I forgive him, he was just hungry, he actually ate after the whole ordeal which is surprising.

[mairon]

Meet my new toffee belly western hoggie: Chris P. Bacon!
He's about 2 years old, and was feeding live with his breeder, but I fed him a few days ago and he took the f/t very happily. He's been burrowing in his substrate (aspen/eco earth 1:1 ratio, will probably switch him completely to aspen during the next clean though) and has been looking around his enclosure. He's a very chill dude considering his species notoriety for having an attitude, and was very calm the two times I've handled him since I brought him home. I'm very happy with him, and I hope he is very happy with me too. I'm very excited to get to know him better, gosh I love little hoggies and their boop snoots!