• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

need advice/ just bought some baby bp's

K

KatNPat

New member
So i have 15 baby ball pythons coming on monday. It was one of those last minute chances and i said yes. Now i'm quickly realizing how much i don't know.:confused: I now think that these little ones are probably wild caught as they were such a good deal(financially anyway) So other than quarantining them for 3 months, what else do i need to worry about? Also, how does one go about controlling their temperature, i was thinking i could use heat lights over all the little containers, except then they dont have a temp. choice. I know that breeders have a way of doing this so....please give me some advice. Before you tell me, i know what a stupid :punch:thing it as to do when i dont have the knowledge or experience to deal with them, but i am willing to learn fast. Thanks for any and all advice. Also. if there are any threads i can read i would love to but i couldnt find any.
 
If you even Think they are WC I would have them all checked for worms and parasites, ASAP. About the only person I know of that has lots of baby bps is LadyOhh.... There are more, I am sure but I cant think of them off the top of my head. I would try contacting Heather (LadyOhh) and see if she can help you :)
 
Like Cat Eyed Lady said, have them all checked for worms and parasites, because if they are indeed WC they'll probably have them.
I'd recommend using an under tank heat source, i use that for my BP's too.
 
If they were less then $10 a piece, you can be just about positive they are CH or WC.

I must say, I'm shocked that you would purchase a group of 15 hatchling BPs when you have zero experience and no where to put them. Frankly, it makes me sad for the snakes. If in fact they are CH/WC, don't expect them to be feeding or for all of them to survive at all. Thousands of hatchling BPs are imported every year and sold cheaply, I would guess that only half even survive to become yearlings.

At the very least, they should be housed individually in 6qt tubs with a hot spot of 90 degrees. Hanging heat lights over the bins will not be sufficient in the least. UTH's or FlexWatt controlled by a thermostat is what you will need. I would suggest picking up the Ball Python manual to learn how to appropriately care for the species.
 
Definitely get the Ball Python Manual first thing - that is what I did when I decided to get some BPs. After reading it, I started lurking on some BP forums to see the answers to frequent questions. And then I bought and read the books by Kevin McCurley and the Barkers.

ALL of my adult / subadult normal females are c.h., plus I have bought a couple of dozen other baby c.h. BPs the last couple of years so that I could get them well started, and offer them to my customers while waiting for my own to mature and reproduce. I have to say that I only ever had 1 baby that had a problem. They have all been healthy, great feeders. But of course, that assumes they are healthy when received. Luckily, they usually come in from Africa in the spring, so they haven't been held too long yet. Because they are so cheap, unfortunately, many wholesalers do not feed or care for them properly. So it is important not to buy them other than the spring, unless it is from somebody who really takes care of them. So I think the c.h. are usually fine (but NOT older, w.c. BPs - too many problems), depending on the care received in North America.

OTOH, knowing the huge numbers, cheap prices, and minimal care, many keepers may not want to participate in this particular trade. I have mixed feelings, because I believe that the trade may give native people an economic reason to perpetuate the BPs and their habitat, instead of selling all for skins, and clearing the land for agriculture.

It is pretty easy to set up the babies. Just line up the tanks or tubs on a shelf or two, and run heat tape of some sort across the back end. Give them a hot spot of around 90F, and cooler up front. They really like a hide box, but check temps INSIDE the box, too. I like cypress mulch because it can be dampened when needed for shedding - aspen molds up easier. They need more humidity than corns to shed.

You might want to start them on f/t. I started mine on live, which is easier. But it is much more difficult to change adults to f/t than it is for babies.

That is the basics, but spend a few dollars on a couple of good books, and lurk on some BP forums (read some of the questions asked and answered over the last few weeks) to see common problems and their solutions.

Good luck!
 
Thanks for all the advice. First off, i may have misled you a little. I am breeding cornsnakes already, have read your book Kathy, as well as others, and also, i have a ball python already, so its not really fair to describe me asw having "zero experience" its just that this is a little above my level of experience
and i reached out for some helpful advice, which i did get. Also, they were $20.00 each, so maybe not wc after all. Anyway, i will find out tomorrow. As for my corns, they are housed individually and all have uth's but when my eggs hatched i left them together for a few days so i wasn't too sure about these guys. I will look into all the above mentioned info. Thanks so much to all who responded.
 
so if their ch or farmed does that mean i still need to get them all vet checked? Are the risks still as high? Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top