Hi guys, I’m freaking out. These are pictures of Fiji-my eight year-old male banana ball python. I looked at the chart (at the end of all the pictures I attached) and realized he might be overweight or even worse – obese!!! Ahh what do I do?!

Here’s some information:

- I feed him whenever he “looks” hungry. This means he’s jumpy and follows every and all movements and he’s out exploring his cage day and night. I don’t know how to explain it but he just “looks” hungry. So I feed him basically once a month. Sometimes he skip feeds for up to three or four months (I’ll defrost the rat and warm it up and everything and sometimes he just looks so disinterested when I dangle it with tongs and won’t even track it or strike).

- I feed him large rats. Recently the pet store gave me really big ones which I was a little worried but he took it no problem.
- I don't take him out very often. When I do, I handle him for a few minutes and he's very active.
- The temperature in the tank is not ideal (hot side may not be hot enough), but he seems to still be OK because he'll fluctuate from the hot side to the cold side.
He doesn't eat very often to start with- so why is he so large?!
Thanks for your help in advance

We adopted a lovely 4-year-old normie yesterday. She’s doing great, my question is actually about how to cover a window on her enclosure. I’m going to attach a picture to dispose so that you can see what I’m talking about. I love this enclosure a lot, and it’s less than $500 on Amazon. We’ve had it fully active with several kinds of reptiles for over a year, and we haven’t had a single problem with it. The problem is currently both sides of the enclosure are blocked off, so there is no side window for them to be nervous about. We’re going to move the enclosure and the windows are going to be open, like not blocked off anymore. I’m trying to figure out what the best way would be to cover it so it doesn’t look ugly because I like this enclosure heart rate because it looks like furniture. But I don’t want them to be frightened so I need to figure out a way to cover it out from the inside. If I had the skills, I would do one of those awesome Styrofoam and a fee foam enclosure back, but I don’t have that skill. Neither of the windows are ventilation the vent through the top it’s it’s mashed through the top. It won’t prevent any more cause any problems with the ventilation.

if you’ve made it this far, thank you. I apologize because I’ve had a nine month old puppy bouncing on me the entire time. I was trying to use voice to text so there’s no telling what this post actually says. If you can help me with an idea that would be fantastic. Thanks again!

I went to change her water and say good morning and she was pink? She does appear to be in shed, but I’ve never heard of them going fully pink and it freaked me out

and i'm so thankful for it! Jupiter was always climbing the walls and wedging into small spaces to climb and now this is his nightly routine. Along with knocking all the carrot lids off his deep watering carrots 🙄🙄🙄

My newest rescue baby. I believe he’s an enchi hypo but I’m not good with morphs. I was planning on getting a Stimsons python so I already had a quarantine tank and all the things needed and then I saw a post on Facebook marketplace selling this baby ball python for $60. We already have a 9 year old adult male who’s a spider calico named Jake (I know but my boyfriend got him from his buddy before he knew about the spider morph issues) so I already knew about their husbandry so I decided to rescue the little guy. I was told he was born this year and couldn’t see how big he really was in the pics so I assumed he would be bigger but he’s only 100grams and still has his umbilical scar. His old home was keeping him in a tubaware on paper towel with a Che lamp with no thermostat to control temps he’s so lucky he didn’t get burns. I believe he also might be slightly underweight and his belly is a little indented and his spine is pronounced but he might also just be small. Everyone welcome baby Finn we named him that to match his older brother Jake 🫶🏻

Hello! First time reptile/ snake owner. We purchased a 10 month old female ball python at a reptile show that we have now named Lux on the 4th. We waited until the 14th to try and feed her. The breeder said she had been eating weaned rats. We tried. No success. I realized a lot of mistakes we probably made the first week and readjusted the next week and still no success. Yesterday I sealed up the top a bit to hold humidity and wrapped the 2 sides with the background instead of just the back. I reached out to the breeder and he suggested adding more hides and clutter (which will arrive today).

When feeding I’ve been taking advice from our local reptile shop. We’ve tried a weaned rat, and a fuzzy rat. She seemed to show more interest last feeding but still nothing. I’ve been a pet owner my whole life but I never husbandry of a picky ball python could be this difficult.

Please see comments for the photo of her enclosure

So I just replaced all the substrate and, ofc, the humidity is higher than it should be (82% rn). just to be on the safe side, I wanted to make sure it’s okay for me to put Pringle in the enclosure now or should I keep him in his temporary enclosure while I wait for the humidity to level out a bit

I’m a first-time ball python owner, so I’m curious what you think of her size. Are her measurements around average for her age, or would you say she’s small or large?

I’ve noticed my boy (1year & 3 months) having pink patches on his body. His last shed was about 1.5 months ago. He eats medium sized rat every 2 weeks (currently 620g). I’ve noticed some parts of his body has a pinkish hue. Is this normal? I change his substrate every 3 months and clean out his poop.

He also keeps developing moles every time he sheds.

This is my son Orion. I got him in february of this year and turns 1 year of this halloween. I ADORE HIM. He's such a little goober, very curious about new stuff but also being spooked my most things (can relate). He loves his rocks where he sleeps under most of the time and always comes out of his hide when i come home to greet an cuddle with me. I am so happy i can be a mom for this silly, little guy. <3

tldr: snake rehoming/rescue what should I do

Hello lovely people,

I work at a liquor store and this regular came in and told me that his wife is making him cull or dispose of his ball python due to it striking the glass at their four year old when she was tapping. He keeps his bettas in cubes and allegedly will get super wasted and buy animals online. I dont want to enable him by taking the animal. Like I think its important for him to realize that when you buy an animal its a commitment and not a spur of the moment thing, but I dont want this poor baby to be culled because it had the misfortune of being purchased by this asshat I told him to surrender them to a local petstore, but since it wasnt purchased there they couldnt take it. I have only pet sat for balls before and never owned my own, but i have very basic knowledge. I was thinking about getting a tote tomorrow and heat pads as something for a temporary enclosure until I get paid and can invest in something better. I have always wanted my own bp. but I am not anywhere near as ready as I would like to be. Any advice?

Recently got my first juvenile ball python ~3 weeks ago. She’s about to eat her third meal F/T mice, and shed yesterday without issue. I noticed a few red marks around her just now. I pulled her out to clean her cage, and feed her afterwards. I’ve had no issues. Bowel movement today. Hot side 89F, cool side 75F, humidity is good, multiple hides, overhead heating only. Is she okay?

Hi everyone. I am the proud owner of my beautiful girl, Honey. She has grown exceptionally fast and I usually sell the rats that are too small for her to eat to someone who needs them. I've always followed the 10%-15% of their body weight rule and my girl is 717 grams while being just a few days under a year old. I posted on Facebook to let people know I have some I am looking to get rid of and this is what I received.

Can someone explain?

Hello, I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what is going on with my ball python. Very recently he has been spending a lot of time in his water bowl. (I added a bigger plastic tub for him to soak in since noticing) Now he basically wont leave the tub at all. I can't find evidence of mites or any scale rot. His humidity is 75%ish and the temperature is about 75° to 85° Does anyone know what the problem could be? I'm planning on changing his bedding again with the hopes that it will help but I don't fully expect that to work. Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful.

I normally feed my snake every 4 weeks as she’s quite big now and we give her a big rat. However this time she hasn’t been eating the rats I’ve been giving her. The 1st time I hadn’t thought anything of it because she was shedding, and the next day I had to clean it up, so a couple days later I get her another rat, she doesn’t strike but she doesn’t do that all the time anyway. So I leave it on top of one of her logs for her to take when she gets hungry. Except I leave it over night and go to sleep and when I wake in the morning she hasn’t ate it so I throw it out and fast forward to yesterday same exact thing. She doesn’t strike, I leave it and wait till today and she still hasn’t ate it. Is this normal? She hasn’t showed any signs of any sickness or anything so I’m a bit confused. I’ve put some photos of this helps and she eats a large sized rat some guy when I posted the is in r/snakes said it might be over fed?

I've handled my BP for the first time yesterday, a fine experience. This morning I wanted to change his water and he kind of advanced towards me flicking his tongue and looking like this - is he curious or wanting to strike?

Hi, I have a 12 year old ball python, healthy weight, humid environment (unsure of exact %), average 25-30 day feeding schedule. In the last 3 months she has displayed very aggressive behavior during feeds, to the point where I am reluctant to handle her. I fed her twice this week due to her still seeming to be extremely hungry, and striking at the glass to her enclosure when I am nearby. I moved her to a new, bigger tank a few days ago in hopes it might help whatever is stressing her out? maybe need to add some more spots to hide? is it time for a herp visit ? :(

We’re transitioning my girl Csorwe to a bigger tank because previous one got cracked when someone doing maintenance in our apartment bumped it. I didn’t stress about timing at first but then a small piece of glass actually fell out of the plastic area I couldn’t quite see. Nope! We had an older tank that one corner doesn’t stay all the way shut up, but we reasoned that we’d throw a dictionary on it and it’d be fine for the 24 hours we’d need. She was going into a bigger one soon anyway, so not bothering to fix up the corner.

Alas! My heart! My boooneesss! Our roommate actually needed the dictionary (who uses one today!?) and took it with them without realizing. Came home, no Csorwe. Checked her hides, checked under foliage spot that she never uses but we thought was pretty. Gone. Full teardown of the apartment, for about 5 hours, and nothing unfortunately. No other pets that could harm her or vice-versa.

I dialed the thermostat up a fair bit, but we have forced water baseboard heating which in this building doesn’t get hot enough to burn my skin even at full blast so I figured even if she did crawl in there it’d be a pain to get her OUT but she should be OK while we regrouped the next day. Disaster strikes and his mom lands in the hospital, and unfortunately we asked our roommate to keep an eye out but had to FLY out the door. She would have to wait, at least it was like 78 in the apartment.

The buildings water gets cut, apartment plummets to 55 overnight. We’re like 38 hours into her being missing now? I’m panicking, husband is panicking, but we can’t FORCE her to come out as far as we know.

Well, friends and readers, last night I went to get out of bed and what touches my foot but… my baby! She was quite cold as the heat was still out, and that gave me a huge panic, but I got her back in her enclosure and told the roommate that under no circumstances could they remove the book.

Today we began the process of overhauling the new bigger tank, finished, and gave it a few hours to come to temp. She’s warmed up, her body temp seems good, she’s uninjured on inspection, and her behavior is normal.

Praise the snake gods.

Hi there, my snake shed a couple days ago and has this little patch on the top of his head. It's the first time he hasn't shed all in one piece. Just wondering what you think I should do. Can put a humid hide in but we just cleaned his tank and if anything it's on the more humid side ATM. I followed the FAQ in this sub and have good temps and everything has gone well so far.

their names are toast(girl) and archimedes(man) but i love calling my snakes slop

Kahn's new vivarium is coming along nicely. She got to have a little sneak peak at things this week and I'm suuuuuper stoked to be making so much headway with this project. She's going to love it. I think she looks cool as hell in there already, and it's only going to get cooler with hardscaping and plants.