My first ball python

[m1n054]

I say "my first" because I certainly hope it isn't my last . The only problem I have with it is that it's a male and I rather have a female so I can breed sooner, but oh well, this just means that I'm going to have to buy a breeder mojave/pastel later on.

I have no name for it, but I was thinking 'Nehushtan' since it kind of looks like a brass snake.

I am wondering if I have enough air holes on the tub...

 

[AliCat37]

Cute!
Ball pythons are not my passion, but I LOVE my little guy and I know you already are in love with yours! It looks like you have enough air holes. If there is a lot of condensation build up, you may need more, maybe in the top of the lid.

Since you have yours on aspen (I have mine on aspen as well), make sure that he doesn't get too dry. It is a delicate balance between too wet and too dry. I would switch him to cypress mulch or something else that holds moisture well. I know that one of our members here has a lot more she can extrapolate on in regards to BP care, I think that is bloodybaroness, but I could be wrong since I am going off memory here.

The only reason I have mine on aspen is because he seems to have allergies to the other types of woods.

 

[m1n054]

Cute!
Ball pythons are not my passion, but I LOVE my little guy and I know you already are in love with yours! It looks like you have enough air holes. If there is a lot of condensation build up, you may need more, maybe in the top of the lid.

Since you have yours on aspen (I have mine on aspen as well), make sure that he doesn't get too dry. It is a delicate balance between too wet and too dry. I would switch him to cypress mulch or something else that holds moisture well. I know that one of our members here has a lot more she can extrapolate on in regards to BP care, I think that is bloodybaroness, but I could be wrong since I am going off memory here.

The only reason I have mine on aspen is because he seems to have allergies to the other types of woods.

Thank you , this reminds me I need a hygrometer because my humidity in my room is actually pretty crazy. It goes from 65-35% sometimes, but for the most part it has stayed around 60%. I do have an hygrometer in my corn snake tank and it has stayed at 50-60% for the longest, but I put a bigger bowl on the python tub so I might get higher humidity too...

And regarding the different substrates I can use I might try something else. I have heard some bad things about aspen but so have I from other substrates too, but I might just change from aspen to newspaper even because I've read about aspen getting dusty sometimes and causing RI on pythons. This worries me some because my room can be unbelievable dusty sometimes.

 

[NH93]

Hey, I also have a pinstripe ball python (male as well)!
I luuuurve him. If you haven't already, there are a few good ball python forums out there as well for some more specific information (I go to www.ball-pythons.net; it's decent for the most part, but a large community).
Good luck!

 

[juliegarner]

I have a girlie ball and love her to bits. She is so calm compared to my corn lol

 

[m1n054]

Hey, I also have a pinstripe ball python (male as well)!
I luuuurve him. If you haven't already, there are a few good ball python forums out there as well for some more specific information (I go to www.ball-pythons.net; it's decent for the most part, but a large community).
Good luck!

Oh yes I have seen your pinstripe in the forums a very nice snake I'm already aware of ball-pythons.net and have been researching a lot from there

I have a girlie ball and love her to bits. She is so calm compared to my corn lol

He's sure calm except this one time when I put him in his hide he started hissing at me. Now he's all jumpy when I take out the hide so I'm gonna stay away from his tub for a couple of days until he finally feels comfortable around the tub.

And I just realize how much the aspen dries out the humidity out of my corn snake tank :/ It would usually be at 55% but then yesterday I decided to finally get her out of quarantine (she had mites) and replaced the kitchen towel with aspen and mi humidity just dropped to 30% (now at 45%). I am starting to think this petco dial is playing tricks on me... because there hasn't been any changes in temperature or dryness in my room. I even clear out the dust..

 

[Wamba681]

Keeping the lid of the tank open for a while, shuffling things around, moving the air around will also cause my hygrometers to drop down as well. I keep my BP in a tub, and his humidity ~60% currently due to shedding. It's usually around 50%. But when I open his tub to feed him/handle him, whatever I'm doing, it'll drop sometimes as low as 20%, but after a while it'll climb back up again once I put the lid back on.

 

[Nanci]

I have 24 hour humidity monitoring on (in the room, not the viv) and the humidity cycles up and down daily, being inversely proportional to the temperature. As the temp drops, the humidity increases, reaching a peak in the wee hours of the night, and it is at its lowest about 5PM when the room is the warmest.

(If you look at my thread about remote temperature monitoring, you can see my set-up. I love it and have since installed a second monitor, on my hatching rack, and will be adding more as I can afford them).

 

[Blue Apple Herps]

Great looking pinstripe!

And you definitely have enough holes. I actually just have holes in one side of my bp tubs to keep humidity a little higher. They get plenty of airflow with normal opening/closing, so nothing to worry about.

 

[m1n054]

Great looking pinstripe!

And you definitely have enough holes. I actually just have holes in one side of my bp tubs to keep humidity a little higher. They get plenty of airflow with normal opening/closing, so nothing to worry about.

Oh there's just another thing I forgot to mention, there's the same amount of air holes in the other side too. It's just that the angle I took the photo didn't show up the other ones .

Humidity has been at 50% all day.

 

[m1n054]

I got another question, I just got my heat mat/thermostat for my ball python and I'm wondering if I should measure the temp above or below the substrate. I know corn snakes like to hide a lot in the aspen but my ball python hasn't doing anything like that. He only moves around the surface of the aspen and while it might be 90 below the aspen, it's only 81 above the aspen (it's not that much aspen either) in the hot spot.

Do you guys think I should raise the temp so I can get higher temps above the substrate?

 

[NH93]

Definitely measure BELOW the substrate, at the hottest possible spot your snake can get to (so measure on the tub directly above the middle of the UTH). If your snake wants warmth, s/he will dig to get to the warmth, so no worries there!
81 above the substrate seems pretty normal/good

 

[m1n054]

Well it seems my ball python just might have mite because my corn snake had mites and thought they were gone since I've been treating her with Reptile Spray for like 15 days every 3-4 days except with that one time when she was in shed (first one piece shed ever)...

So now he's in quarantine just like with my corn snake and cleaned everything again (took me 2 hours lol) and I'm considering buying a can of PAM...

 

[chris68]

I'd skip the PAM and consider treating with Provent A Mite...Unless of course PAM stands for Provent A Mite
http://www.pro-products.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=59

 

[m1n054]

I'd skip the PAM and consider treating with Provent A Mite...Unless of course PAM stands for Provent A Mite
http://www.pro-products.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=59

Yes this is exactly what i'm gonna get Provent a Mite.

 

[m1n054]

So it's been already more than a week since I've got my ball python and I took him out a couple of days ago and he's really awesome. He doesn't ball up anymore, so I don't know if that's normal he just cruises around my hands, trying to get in my shorts and he doesn't feel uncomfortable when i touch his head.

I worry about his health though: he has refused a F/T hopper twice so I threw it away (petco-petsmart only have big rats), breeder told me he ate F/T mice/rats just the same but last meal was a rat so I'm guessing he already shows preference to rats or he just didn't like the albino hopper.

I am also worried about the ambient temps and the humidity of the tub. It normally stays at 56-60% but sometimes it jumps to 65-70%. It used to be at 50% constantly but since I switched to newspaper the humidity went up and today my room became really cold (72F) so I woke up (5 am) immediately and turn my TV, my PC, lights and even my oil heater to raise the temp. I took him out today as well and I saw him yawning once. I immediately thought "he has a RI...", checked him out and no mucus or bubbles that I could see. You can't hear a wheezing nor he raises his head to breath so I googled out ball python yawn and they seem to do it now and then so i guess it's all good. He just really freaked me out when he did that . Raised the temp on the hot spot a couple of degrees just in case (93F from 90F).

 

[NH93]

A lot of questions there

Firstly, you have had him a week you say? You should have waited at least one week to attempt feeding him, to allow him to settle in. Maybe don't attempt another feeding for at least another week. What methods have you tried to thaw and present the rat?
And do you know if the store had successfully fed your BP 3 consecutive (in a row) times with f/t rats? If not, they shouldn't have sold him to you.

The humidity is fine. They are not corn snakes; they require higher humidity, 60-70% range typically.

The yawn is probably nothing. They sometimes yawn after feeding to put their jaws back in place. It's when you have consistent yawning that you should be on the worried side and checking for other symptoms of RI.

As for the temps, do you have a heat lamp or heat emitter on top of the UTH and thermostat? That will help with the ambient air temps for your BP, which should never dip below 75F, but should stay around 80F!!

This can also dry out the enclosure, depending on the humidity in the air in general.
Substrate like aspen will dry out the enclosure. If it is too dry (ie. below ~40%) there are many other types out that that hold humidity better and tend not to mould (for example, cyprus mulch) if aspen doesn't work for you.

 

[AliCat37]

To add to the above post,
I would completely start over at this point. Completely leave him alone other than to change water for at least a week.
Also, black out three sides of your tub and the lid too in order to minimize the amount of light getting in.

 

[m1n054]

I got the ball python from a breeder (Robert Seib classifieds from kingsnake.com, checks out good at BOI) and I would assume he has eaten at least twice because he gave him a mouse and a rat (F/T) but I'm sure he has eaten more than that since he told me he was a couple of months old.

It might have been that I had a bad hopper that time because when I opened it up straight from the bag he had blood all over his face (already had this happened twice with petco mice). The bag was sealed good but i think he was squashed at some point. So I put him back into the bag and let it thaw on hot water for a little bit since he wasn't like frozen more like refrigerated.

I think I made a mistake though because I didn't dangle the mice properly at first, I just wanted to see if he would take it from the substrate which he didn't then I put him in front of him and nothing. I left him there for like 5 hours then took it away, bagged it and froze it. This was on Monday at night, I got him Tuesday of the previous week in the morning. And here's when I made a dumb decision, I tried feeding him the next day as well when I should have left him alone for more time.

I don't know if I want to buy a lamp yet before testing out the different substrates, he's on newspaper at the moment and the humidity has stayed at 60% for the longest. I also have a ceiling fan and I'm planning in on using it for now so getting the heating lamp might be an overkill on humidity? I'm also using a tub so I'm not entirely sure how would that work. Been looking for how people hold up ambient temps on racks and some of them use space heaters for it which is why I thought of my oil heater and so far the temps have been holding at 80F. Not really an efficient way though as I'm heating the entire room :/

Hopefully I can buy rat fuzzies this weekend at Austin Repticon and the PAM for the mites, if not I'll have to buy online... I don't know if I should try feeding him first or sanitize it and wait a couple of days then feed him. I want to let him chill for a good time though before trying anything again, I just picked him out today to check out his weight because last time he ate was October 24 and wanted to see if he lost much weight, but he's still at 125 grams. He looks a little bit thin to me but what do I know XD.

 

[NH93]

Everyone messes up a bit at times

Firstly, do not refreeze a thawed rat and try to feed it again! You know how when you thaw chicken to eat, and then if it sits out for 5 hours you can't rethaw it and hope it'll be good the next time you thaw it? Same thing with snake food. If they refuse it and it sits out, just throw it out. Not worth getting your snake potentially ill the next feeding, you know?

If you have a thermostat with UTH (set around 90F), that should be enough to not only have a hot spot, but warm the entire tub to where it should sit around 80F, I would think. I'm not sure if UTHs are ok on plastic tubs, though... Sorry I can't remember what source of heat you are using for your BP. But you do not want to get too high of a wattage bulb that may heat up the tub TOO much.

I don't have any experience with tubs, I just use glass tanks, so I'm not much help there!