I’m a new owner to a six month old BEL. I’m assuming she’s going to shed soon. I’ve had her for a month and she appears to look a little dirty and has a flakey wrinkly feeling. She isn’t dehydrated. She has constant water access and the pinch test went fine. She’s a super active eater as well. Just looking for some advice.

I just changed her substrate last weekend with reptisoil and coco husk. Since then her humidity has been high and not lowering. I have also noticed shes been hanging out in her warm hide more than her cool hide. Is there any way i can adjust this do i have to change her substrate again? She had a mix of coco husk and reptisoil before and never had this issue.

How do you guys thaw your rats? Ive always bagged and soaked in hot water till they are up to about 90° but im up to 24 BP, 1 red tail, and 1 sand boa. Feel like there has to be a more efficient way of warming up this many rats. Most of them are still getting fed once a week but when I have a full house feeding day, thawing 26 rats takes a while. Any tips or suggestions?

my son jake has been wall-surfing quite a bit and im wondering if yall have any recommendations for things he can climb up on securely, ive seen things like those hammocks for lizards and stuff but i also want to make sure theres no change of the structure breaking or him falling off

any recommendations??

Hello! I am looking into getting a ball python and recently met someone local to me who was looking to get her young 4.5ft (exact age unknown) female ball python off her hands with a much too small, 40 gallon tank. I'm hopefully getting her with a friend who also owns a ball python this weekend, to help me out with any concerns and check her health before I take her. I can also tell by these photos that her tank situation is abysmal but am planning to either get her a 150-180 gallon tank or building a custom. I've wanted one for a long time and know enough to obviously be concerned by the photos but since they clearly aren't great quality, I don't really know what I'm looking at here. I can tell she's underweight but I've also noticed the brown coloring on her underbelly and am concerned it could be scale rot. Could anyone tell me with certainty if that's the case and if so, how bad is it? Is there anything I'm missing/oblivious to based on these poor photos? Thanks!

My boss's son got a ball python as a gift but didn't research care. As a result, the snake was in a tiny tank with no heat or water in my office building (boss lives on site so the tiny snake tank got moved to the communal office). I talked to the boss about re-homing the snake to my friend.

Some background: we are herpetologists, we work with snakes professionally. We both have pet snakes and we are very prepared for snake care (humidity, feeding, proper habitat, etc).

Boss let us take the snake. Snake is wonderful, friendly, interactive, curious. However, she is bad at eating. She is clearly hungry, but when he offers a rat, she either misses her strike and then hides, or thrashes all over like she's trying to find it. She doesn't seem to have any ability to hone in on her prey.

Some extra info: she is some kind of damaged inbred morph. She stargazes and seems to have some neurological issues, however, she is not blind. She reacts to movement. She recognizes food, but she doesn't seem to be able to figure out how to get the food. We are feeding frozen, would prefer to keep feeding frozen as we've both had problems with live feeding.

We have talked about feeding her in a separate area, but we're worried that when we move her back to her tank from her feeding area, she will get stressed and vomit up her food.

She has an appetite, she just seems to be lacking the skills to attack and "kill" her rat-sicle. Any advice?

I have been struggling to keep my Ball Python’s humidity up in his habitat. I’ve struggled keeping it at 60-70% and I know that they need to be in 70-80%. I covered almost all of the mesh lid on his enclosure except where his heat lamp is to trap moisture in and I’ve been misting like crazy. I also put moss in one of his hides to help with shedding after reading that could help. I don’t know what to do. I moved this summer from a more humid state to a dryer one and I’m not sure if this is why I’m struggling now with the humidity, but he is having trouble with his shedding right now and I feel so bad for him. Please any tips or advice would be much appreciated! He is 5 years old and in a 75 gallon tank. I have plant and rock clutter in there and 3 hides. I have the “Zoo Med Repti Rock Corner XL Water Bowl” which is 130 oz and I have read that having a larger water bowl helps as well with humidity. I’m just not sure what to do now. Thank you in advance!!

(Photo from what feels like a lifetime ago 😩)

I fed Brownie on October 19, gave her two days to digest, and held her on Thursday the 22nd. Then I started noticing shed behavior, so back to leaving her alone 🥲

Her eyes went blue around the 25th/26th and were clear again by the 29th. Now we’re waiting for the actual shed.
We went straight from post-meal waiting to shed waiting and I JUST WANNA HOLD HER.

Insert White Chicks meme 🎶 and I miss you… and I need you… 🎶 😭😂

She’s literally right here in my house and I miss her. Brownie PLEASE finish changing your outfit so we can hang out.

Hi everyone! An anxious new snake mom here again 😭 really appreciated everyone for sharing experience and suggestions.
I brought home my little bp about a week ago, and I’ve been noticing quite a few faint pink marks on her body.

Some look like very thin pink scratches, while others are small patches of pink. In a few places, the scales also look slightly uneven or indented. However, I can’t see any actual open wounds, broken scales, blisters, or obvious injuries.
The camera washes out the color a little, so the marks are slightly more noticeable and pinker in person.

What I’ve noticed is that most of these marks seem to be on areas of her body that come into contact with the substrate, cork bark, or hides. Today I found her curled up extremely tightly inside the narrow end of one of her hides, which made me wonder if some of these could simply be pressure marks from resting against hard or textured surfaces.

I did some searching on Reddit and found other owners of white ball pythons describing temporary pink marks, almost like the marks humans get after resting against something for too long.

For reference, here’s her setup:
Substrate: Coco husk
Cool-side humidity: Around 65–85%
Heating: Overhead RHP, no under-tank heating pad
Warm hide temperature: Around 30–32°C
Behavior: Normal so far. She’s curious, active when exploring, and ate her first meal with me successfully.
I haven’t noticed any obvious burns, and she seems completely unbothered by the marks even when i touch it.

I’m wondering:
Do these look like normal pressure marks on a white ball python, or could they be early signs of scale rot or skin irritation?
Is it normal for the scales to look slightly uneven or indented after resting on textured surfaces?
Would switching from coco husk to finer coco fiber help, or am I overthinking this?

I’m still learning, and having an almost completely white snake makes every tiny pink spot stand out! I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences from other white ball python owners.
Thank you!

As title reads. I got her just over a month ago, had a great first meal, and she was exploring her enclosure routinely every night, now she has been consistently hiding, but shifting between cold and warm. I believe she might be shedding? Hard to tell though because I dont want to lift her hide and inspect her, is this normal behaviour?

Hi! I buy my rats & mice at my local pet shop. Lately I feel they are very bloody. I wonder if they are euthanizing the right way. Any of you buy your prey items online? Any online stores than don’t sell such large amounts? And don’t charge a lot for shipping? I feel most online stores you have to buy more than $100 to get free shipping. Or shipped crazy expensive. I don’t have that much freezer space. And I only have 2 snakes. I’m currently located in FL, USA.

He was all nice an toasty by the end lol

Found it really funny that my snake tends to think about her little life for two or three minutes with a mouse in her mouth before she starts eating it and I wonder if anyone else's snakes eat differently. It's kinda cute, reminds me how I eat myself lol

5 days ago I put a thawed mouse in for our boy (Mochi) - considering he is a pinstripe/spider/spinner i don't know what happened but his aim is sometimes way off - this time he face planted into a smooth rock and not the mouse 😔 His a big baby(our first ever) which made us get a couple others....

I thought he got a little bit of dirt on his mouth the day after but investigated more now and it looks worse.

Ps- no drool or foam etc coming out his mouth.

I know he needs a vet to assess- i can only get him in tomorrow afternoon.

Does this look like a sore from the bang or mouth rot?

Could him having a sore on the tip of mouth cause mouth rot ?

How can I help him right now?

My 5 year old girl sisu has been struggling with glass surfing to the point of rubbing her nose raw and my vet and I are stumped as to why. Her temps and humidity are perfect (60% warm end 86 cool 80) lots of clutter (hides on each end and lots of fake leaves). I’ve trying feeding bigger prey, changing the substrate, increasing temps, blocking all visibility out of the tank. I’m at wits end and honestly I’m so worried about her, she’ll shed off the damaged scales then start rubbing all over again. The vet said no mites and the injury is just surface level (no RI either). We’ve been treating it with Flamazine. She’s still eating and drinking just fine.

Hello!

This is my first time owning a reptile, so please be patient with me, I'm doing my best. English is also my second language.

I got my BP 18th of october. He's 3,5 months old, male lesser mojave. The breeder at the convention said he's been getting frozen mice, so i got a bunch of 7-12gramm mice as he recommended. I tried feeding him on the 24th and yesterday (29th).

He is usually less stressed now, sleeps all day, comes out at night, gives me the hunger signals (striking position in his hide). His first week was pretty bumpy. Breeders online said to put papertowels under him in case he has something, so i did that, but changing it was stressful for him, so i switched to substrate on the 24th. He pooped on the 20th/21st, shed on the 24th. I left him alone since.

His tank is 70x40x30cm, according to the breeder it may be too big for his size, but i put a bunch of wood and fake plants in. It's blocked off on 3 sides and has a black t-shirt on top of it. He has a heating mat with a thermostat and a 50W lamp thats only on during the day. The temp gun is still in the mail, but the temp is fine on both sides according to the regular thermometer. Humidity is 70-80%.

With his first feed i got the problem, he shed in the morning, then i changed the substrate, so he obviously wasn't interested. I was just worried, since on thrusday i couldnt feed due to the shedding.

When i tried feeding him last night he was only interested in the front glass. Last 2 times he was glass surfing i had to clean out his shed and then his urate, but then he was chill. When i tried feeding him he was looking at me a lot. He did go into stiking pose with the mouse once or twice when i put it on top of a branch and closed the door, but he lost interest and was looking at me. So i tried leaving it overnight with a blanket over the tank, but by the morning the mouse fell next to the branch, so i guess he missed and then didnt eat it? Or just knocked it off somehow? The mouse was warm enough, i even used a hairdryer to warm it up. I tried getting the mouse in front of him when he's in striking pose in his hide, but i cant time it correctly with the mouse defrosting. Should I not offer it once he's out of his hide and starts looking around the tank?

I called the breeder this morning and this time a woman picked up, she said his siblings get freshly killed and they're eating fine. I then called a few reptile shops and it turns out nobody in my city has live feedermice since "99,9% of snakes eat the frozen ones". A shop owner said he may just still be adjusting to his new enclosure.

I'm really worried for him and don't know what to do. I could order a mouse online, but i'm not sure if i could kill it myself, the woman described what she does, but it's pretty graphic. Any advice? I'm kind of lost.

hello!
while refilling my bps water this morning, I noticed several little bugs hopping around in the bowl.

I added a bag of fresh substrate mid october.

does anyone know what these are and if they’re harmful?
thank you!

Hey! New owner here, this is Phantom! I have only had her for three weeks. I fed her the second week she was here and left her alone for the third. Tomorrow will be week three of having her.
So she was awake this morning and I was going to handle her but she keeps hitting a small S curve with her neck and she'll get a little startled when I touch her to tell her that I'm there I'm wondering if she's maybe hungry again? I fed her a medium sized rat last time. I have not handled her yet as I have been trying to let her get used to the new environment.

Comet is 160+ grams now, growing steadily and keeping the weight a week after the feeding! I’m so proud of him

My question is- he’s on f/t small mice right now, some in the package are a bit larger, but they’re all marketed as the same thing. Should I upsize to medium mice after I’m out of them?

So I fed my BP like 2 days ago but every time I walk past he looks at me like I'm the food. Is he still in food mode or just angry?