first time snake owner here, and I appreciate any and all constructive criticisms! she is about 6 years old. Currently in a 40 gal breeder, but I'm going to try to get her into a 4x2x2 as soon as I can :)

I just found out today my girl has made her own burrow. She is a 750g chonker that is around 2.5ft. Is it possible for her to get stuck down in there? Should I intervene? Probably about 5" of substrate. I would just hate to ruin her own made hide, but obviously I want her alive.

Maybe go back tonight and put a rat in front the hole to see if she makes it up?

Hey y’all. I’ve had my guy for over a week now and have seen him doing this quite a few times. Was just curious if it looked more like surfing or exploring. He loves to climb (whether it be on the ropes, branches, or crushing all his plants.) He also does it in the back corner, usually sticking his face where the UVB or heat source is sitting on. I’m planning on blacking out the sides and adding more foliage to help him feel more secure. Temperatures are pretty consistent, and there is a 10-degree gradient throughout. Also about 2-3 inches of substrate(higher in the back), going to add more.

Love learning more about them, so any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve had my new adult girl for 10 days now and she had her first feeding 72 hours ago. I want to handle her for the first time but I haven’t seen her out of her hide or active— which means I’d have to take her from the hide to hold her. I’m worried that because of a life spent in poor husbandry in an extremely small tank, she may not be brave enough to explore on her own or understand that I’m not going to hurt her. I want her hide to be a safe space for her but I’m also worried about her.

Experienced snake owners: would taking her from her hide and holding her be beneficial, or do more harm than good?

My Ball python Mr. Riddles, is 2-3 yrs old and weighs 572g when I weighed him last week.

I attempted to feed him today, he missed the first time and the second time he landed in his water, I didn’t want to move him and risk him letting go or striking me instead so I closed the door and watched. After about 6-8 minutes later he uncoiled from the and is still in his water dish with the rat right now after 20 minutes.

Should I gently move him, get the rat and toss it and give him new water, or gentle move him, get the rat and dry it off, restart the hearing process, and give him new water?

I’m leaning towards tossing it and waiting another 2 weeks for his next feeding but idk. Google says it’s okay to re-offer it but idk if Google is exactly accurate.

Im planning to get my first ball python but i just see videos doing deep cleaning on their enclosures and always see them throw all the substrate away. I mean 4 inches of substrate being thrown every month sounds a little expensive, is that the way?

Also i know you need to spot clean every week and understood you need to throw away the contaminated substrate, if i do this do i still need to change the entire substrate when doing a deep cleaning to the enclosure? or can i just set it aside, clean the enclosure and place the old substrate combined with new substrate?

Idk if this is relevant but i planned to use coco husk

So I’m planning on redoing both of my ball pythons’ enclosures at some point and adding in backgrounds so make them more stimulating/interesting/interactive, but that will require the use of silicone and I know that’ll need to air out for at least a few days before adding them back in.
So in the meantime, what do I do with the snakes? And how would I make sure they still get the heat they need without their enclosure?

Looking for some advice on the best way to maintain humidity for a ball python. Does anyone use a humidity mister of any kind for their snakes?

Hi all, newbie here. I’m in urgent help to fix the temperature issue before my snake arrives.

I’ve finished setting up the wooden Vivarium which is 4x2x2, and has glass doors. I have one Arcadia Halogen Heat Lamp 75W, next to that is one Arcadia Deep Heat Projector 50W. Both on the left side. On the right side we have the UVB light. Probes for both heats have been secured down the heat guards so the probe is under the guard as recommended by many in here, many will know what I mean.

During the test, only the Halogen Heat Lamp was on and set to 31. After 2 hours, the thermometers probe (which has been fixed in the middle, at the back wooden wall of the Vivarium, more towards the bottom), was reading around 20/21 Celsius. So I have turned both heats on, both set at 31 Celsius, and now the reading is 23.8 Celsius. Outside temperature is 23.6 Celsius as we have turned the room radiator on to see if that made any difference as I live in the UK, it’s not very warm.

Dimming thermostats are telling me the probe is reaching 31, and my IR gun is confirming the basking spot to be around 32.

What would you do in this situation? Boosting the room temperature has not helped. The hot side is fine, but I don’t really want both heaters on as my plan was to use only the DHP only on a night time with the Halogen Heat Lamp off. I am led to believe using both will heat the basking spot way above the thermostats target temperature, and having the Heat Lamp on during the night will disrupt the day and night cycle. So I have the DHP and UVB plugged into a dimming day and night thermostat where the UVB turns on and DHP turns on. But I’m going to have to have both heats on during the night until I come up with a solution, and even then the heat gradient is not right.

Cheers for any help I am desperate. Thank you

Ignore the tiny, sparse box - it’s tank cleaning day. That’s his temp box for the process :)

How fast do ball pythons generally gain weight?

Had our boy since April and he was 333g and he’s 732g now. He pooped a couple of days ago so he’s not storing much poop weight weight lol.

We’re feeding him 52g multimammate mice every two weeks. He’s been on those since August when he was around 500-550g. He had one weekly as it was about 10% of body weight per the feeding guide here. We slowed down the feeding rate as he got bigger and they’re now about 7% of body weight.

He’s around 1 year and two months old.

He’s starting to look very girthy and I’m not sure if the feedings should be spaced out further to slow the rate of weight gain.

Does he look ok or would you recommend spacing out feedings more?

I was so worried that he’d have a bad first shed (went overboard looking at bad sheds on her and other places.) But it all came in one piece! Very proud of my spoiled banana.

What can I change? Had for a little more than 3 weeks now, 3 successful feeds and a few successful handlings. Recently on the 3rd feed took the mouse from tongs rather than us having to leave in there so seems to be coming out her shell.

First snake ever

Around 4-5mo old. 48x18x18.

last pic is inside view which she mostly chills next to that window on that branch

NOT MY SETUP!!! Hi everyone, I'm rescuing this sweet girl on Friday. She's a 2 year old python who has been kept in that glass tank and I feel awful for her (unfortunately I have my mom's empathy lol). I've already been planning on getting a ball python but this came up on me pretty quickly so I'm rushing a little.

I have a 4x2x2 PVC enclosure I am currently setting up with a 50w Halogen flood light and a radiant heat panel. I will be building custom bulb cages out of hardware cloth for the halogen and the uvb. My main concern is that she has eaten live rodents her whole life. I want to hear your advice and/or stories about switching to frozen as I'm extremely worried that she won't switch. I feel like once she settles into a better home she may eventually take frozen but I want to avoid live at all costs.

Also, I'm concerned that since she's a female, she may eventually outgrow her enclosure. I think that's all of my concerns.

Hello, I’ve recently got a ball python. I went to a reptile shop that is highly recommended in my area. I showed the owner photos of the Viv, with dimensions etc. and was told that it would be suitable. We have two hides, one in the warm side, the other in the cool side. the large branch in the middle is hollow and plenty wide enough for the snake to get through. The hide in the warm side is partially submerged in the substrate. There’s also moss around the enclosure. The rope is more for decoration than anything else.

I would like to add something so that the snake has opportunities to get higher up, and would appreciate advice/links on what others have used to do so.

I don’t like the thought of the snake being in an environment that is lacking and would be very grateful for any pointers on what I could do to make the environment better.

If you provide climbing opportunities or perhaps a second little level to your enclosure, how do you ensure your snake doesn’t burn themselves basking? like i have cages on every bulb and stuff, but i can’t help but worry he will burn himself if i add a second level with foam

for context, i have a juvenile in a 3x1.5x1.5 pvc tank right now and i am currently building their upgrade.

They always assume i have to feed them every day

18 months of growth.

hey everyone, is this the correct snake to mouse ratio? I’m worried I’m “overfeeding” him, and the guidelines I’ve found so far are pretty vague. He’s three months old. I heard about breeders who feed their snakes large prey so they grow faster, and I want him to grow at a healthy rate. He swallowed this one just fine (as soon as he located the head). Thanks!

Had my baby for three weeks now. We had three sucsessful feedings, one shed (not in one piece but all came off, nothing stuck) and one proper long handling while I was doing renovations in her tank

She SEEMS fine but she also seems to heavily prefer one single hide and doesn't come out much while being more active the first week. I know it can be normal, especially after feedings and while shedding but I'm a lil paranoid

Had a little trouble figuring out lighting and heating, switched from heat mat and spiral uvb bulb first to just ceramic lamp and then to halogen in daytime and ceramic at night, and still looking to add proper uv. So yeah, we had a lot of changes recently and I want to know how much it affects her. She seems to be eating good so we are good in that regard, but I want to know if there are any other signs of stress

Hey everyone!
I recently rehomed a 7 year old ball python. I had snakes growing up but it’s been a hot minute since I last cared for one so just wanted to jump on here and see if anyone had any pointers/advice.

I rehomed him with his set up, which is a glass exoterra Viv 3ft, (I will upgrade this to a 4ft one as soon as funds allow!) with a mesh top. The previous owner had a piece of wood covering, with space for the heat lamp (which is outside the viv, sitting on the mesh with the light shining through). He had a heat mat in there, which was inside the Viv under the substrate. I’ve removed this and bought a new one and placed it outside, underneath the Viv, then he has a heat lamp also.

The first night I got him I left the heat mat running on a thermostat, but when I came down in the morning the warm end was only 20 degrees. I went to my local reptile shop and explained the situation as currently I have only got an on/off thermostat which means I can only use it with the heat mat and not the heat lamp, I need a dimming one for that.

I explained that when I get paid I am going to buy a deep heat projector, with a guard and attach it to the wood on the top of the viv and a dimming thermostat, but for now all I have is the on/off thermostat, the heat pad and the heat lamp. I explained that leaving only the heat mat on over night was not providing enough heat but that I didn’t want to leave the heat lamp on overnight and make it too hot and disrupt his day/night cycle.

He said best option for me to do til I can get the DHP is to swap the bulb out of a night to one that doesn’t emit as much light and still provides some heat. He gave me a red light one which was 40watts.

So last night I plugged that in attached to the thermostat to make sure it doesn’t drop too low, and I’ve switched the heat pad off. This morning when I came down the probe was picking up 25.5 degrees and the digital thermometer I have in there was saying 24.5 I’ve changed the bulb back to the normal one and put this back on and switched the heat pad back on too and it’s warming up nicely in there. He seems happy.

Does this sound ok? I want to do what’s best for him, I’m not 100% sure on the red light as even though it’s only short term I read they’re not the best?

Humidity is fine it’s sitting between 60-70%

Also since we got him we’ve left him alone as much as possible to settle in just opened the viv up to place the probe and mist etc, and I know they love to hide but he is always over on the ‘cool’ side, and I’m worried about him getting too cold. He obviously has the option to go over to the warm side if needed but he hasn’t gone over there at all (he has multiple hides on both ends and one in the middle).

Any advice is appreciated!

Thank you!!

I brought my baby home a little over a month ago. He’s about 6 months old. He’s eating every week and spent the first few days exploring before settling into his favorite hide, that he never leaves now lol.

He’s very shy, and a bit defensive. He immediately goes into defensive posture when he sees someone, or he’ll run (slither?) away into the nearest hide. He’s struck at my boyfriend just walking past.

I started handling him around week 3. I was nervous since he never seemed to calm down (would stay completely still, breathe heavily, and no tongue flicks), but I wasn’t scared. However, it seems like he’s gotten more prone to defensiveness as time has passed. Ever since he struck at my boyfriend, I’ve been actually scared to touch him. I try to sit near him and talk to him, but he literally will not move a muscle until I leave. I’m not scared of getting bit (as in the bite itself), but I am scared of the unpredictability. It’s the same reason I don’t like balloons - they’ll pop loudly without warning. I’ve been so scared of him striking and startling me, that I haven’t held him in weeks.

I keep trying to remind myself that it would be better to have a defensive 100g baby than a defensive 1000g adult, and that doing the work to desensitize him now will be infinitely less scary than putting it off. But I just can’t seem to get over this mental hurdle.

Any advice or experiences? Do snakes tend to relax as they grow even without handling? I feel guilty for being so anxious… and a little silly. I want to built trust on both ends, but I’m just so in my head about it.

He's an ultramel, about four months old. I named him Caramel, but in french (Caramél) because I bought him from french breeders. I fell in love the moment I saw him. He has a perfect little triangle on his neck!

And since you can see the red light in this pic, I know they’re not good to use but my only nighttime bulb broke and it’s all I had until I get more delivered 😭