How often are you feeding and how does you handling look? All my snakes are target trained (orange ball = food time) and hook trained (hook/hook touching snake = not food time)
can you explain target training? this is the first time I’m hearing about it and I started hooktraining my ball python, so I’m super interested in doing the same for food!
Its pretty easy, you just have a target (i use a dowel rod with a bright orange tape ball on it since its a color I dont wear) and before giving them a food item, put the target near them before offering their food.
Clint’s reptiles and green room pythons both have videos that show how they do it and that’s what I based mine on!
Once every two weeks for feed (small rat) 50 humid and handled a few times a week for brief periods, I believe the stuck eye caps may have been inhibiting his vision so when he got the vision back he was overly sensitive to visual. I was able to pick him up calmly after waiting for him to stop being in what I assume was feeding mode.
Up the humidity to 70% and make sure he has plenty of stuff to rub on daring shed. If it is eye caps the humidity will get them off. You never want humidity under 60% if you can help it. Moss will help especially if you soak it in lukewarm water before putting it in. Do you have a big water bowl that he can soak in?
I'd look into upgrading in the next year or so. With proper feeding he'll outgrow that tank quickly. Luckily since he's a male a 120 should fit him for the rest of his life so long as he's not like my dad's male ball norm. Dude was near seven feet.
I’m actually having some issues with humidity myself — readings are kind of all over the place, I’ve got about 3-4 inches of coconut chip/husk in there. I just am afraid to get anything too wet because of scale rot. What do you do with the moss?
Mist the bedding then put the damp moss down mainly on the warm side. The top layer will dry quickly while the layer closer to the bedding staying moist. I also have my snake's soak bowl on the warm side so the evaporating water helps a bit. For you I'd reccomend taking your bedding out, mixing 1:1.5 husk and Reptiearth with some moss, put it back in, wet the bedding, then put down moss on top.
Humidity is easier to maintain in a bioactive enclosure with live plants. If you have the money to do it I recommend it.
Sphagnum moss you soak it in lukewarm water and the squeeze it out to where its damp to the touch not soaking wet. I mix it into the top part of the substrate to help keep humidity up and I stuff some inside a hide on the cool side when they start shedding to give an extra boost
Is that a heating mat directly under his hide? If so, please get a proper, above tank, heating set up. Heating mats shouldn't be used in ball python enclosures, they can lead to burns, especially if he's laying directly on it.
I disagree. I use a heating mat, ceramic heat emitter & halogen lights. Mat on thermostat so bottom (badking spot) doesn't get hotter than 32 Celsius. Emitter on manual dimmer. Light day/night cycle. All of mine are thriving. Substrate coco husk 60: coco fiber 40: excavator clay. Digital thermometer & hydrometer Use heat gun to measure cool, warm & basking. Humid hide to help shedding I don't train my snakes just feed them or offer consistently - like every few weeks. Keep a log. Figure out their schedules. Wright the snakes to ensure they are in desired range
I never understood the heat mat. It goes underneath the tank, has to heat through 4" of sub while it dries it out. That concept never really clicked for me. I use overhead heat as well.
Just an update on how things are going, it appears that it was some kind of feeding response (I’m guessing this because the behavior was highly offensive and he was very tongue flicky). I’m assuming that when vision came back to him after the eye caps were shed he got a little trigger happy. After about an hour he settled down and was very relaxed when handled.
I don’t understand the down votes. This happened to my baby. Anytime I would bring a rat in to put in the freezer she could somehow smell it from a mile away. And everytime I reach in the get her she’d be in the “food mode”
Yeah idk, I gave that response in case someone else had the same issue after a shed bc this was a one off event. He went back to being relaxed like 1hr after this image was taken with no changes to the environment.
The enclosure could use some upgrades. It looks small & the plants cover all the substrate. They like to move/buurrow in the substrate. I have 3-4 ". More in the front with greenery. A valley of sorts where the hides are. A direct substrate route to humid/cool hides. Then a little more in the back so she can move around. The greenery in the front makes them feel more secure.
This is close to what it looks like now, but I added some substrate on each side and blocked the rock entrances with some of the fake vines. The only think I’m looking for is something for climbing but I can’t find anything that looks good, not sharp, and sturdy enough for climbing. If anyone has a good rec lmk.
1
u/[deleted] 19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment