General Care of Ball Pythons

General Info
The Ball python, Python Regius makes an excellent pet. There was a time where i swore to never own a BP, but i eventually gave into their sweet natures and cute chunky looks. They make excellent first snakes, as long as you are familiar with their care requirements. One mistake made by first time snake owners is not keeping their humidity high enough, which will be explained down below. When you are searching for a ball python, i do not recommend buying from a petstore. Most petstores buy wild cought or captive hatched snakes, or even worse, wild cought adults, which generally do not fair well in captivity and tend to be nasty tempered. Do some research and find a local breeder, or someone online. You will also generally pay alot less when buying one from a breeder.

Ball Pythons are a small python reaching an average of 4 and a half to 5ft, and are native to Western and West Central Africa. They are named Ball Pythons because of their defensive posture they take when threatened or startled. Instead of biting, they generally will coil up into a tight ball, and burry their head inside their coils. Another common name for the Ball python is the Royal Python, from its Latin name, Python Regius. They are a constrictor, which means they kill their prey by grabbing ahold of it, and throwing its coils around it, then squeezing the breath slowly out of the animal, eventually killing it by suffocation.

Housing
There are many things you can keep your ball python in. A large tupperwear or rubbermaid sweater boxes make good caging, as well as glass aquariums. You'll need to make sure its secure and escape proof, provides ventilation as well as holds humidity and heat. You can make it as dressed up or plain as you like. Small baby ball pythons(12 to 24inches) do well in 10 gallon tanks, or a rubbermaid container at least 20in x 10in x 12in. For an adult(30 to 48inches) a 20gallon Long or an enclosure 30in x 12in x 12in is the absolute MINIMUM space requirement. A 30gallon Long tank would be a much more suitable enclosure. To secure your tank or enclosure, you can use peices of packing tape on the corners to hold it down, or the trusty old method of just setting a large rock on top of it.. lol.. if the lid is strong enough. All of my tanks have Tough Tops, which are super duty screen lids, and they easily support a large rock. They also sell lid clips for some of the tank lids. Check around to see if you can find them.

Substrate
Ball pythons are a burrowing snake, which need humidity to stay healthy. I recommend using aspen shavings or cypress mulch(which you can find at the local hardwear store), because they both hold humidity well, look nice, easily cleaned, and the snakes can burrow in it. You can also use newspaper, paper towels, Carefresh, and astro turf, but as i mentioned, cypress mulch and aspen shavings are the best. Avoid Ceder shavings. The oil is toxic to snakes. Pine shavings will also cause problems. Use common sense, clean when needed. You can spotclean when using a loose substrate, but change all of it at least once a month

Humdity
In the wild, Ball Pythons spend alot of time in burrows and in litter on the forest floor. Don't think that since Ball Pythons are from africa, they like it dry. Ball Pythons are acually from forested areas, and like it humid. They do best at 60%, and up to 90% when your snake goes into its shed cycle. You can achieve this a number of ways. You can cover most of the screen lid with foil if you are keeping your snake in a tank, and put the water bowl under(or on, in the case of heat pads) the heat source. You can also buy a mister bottle and mist down the cage as needed to keep the humidity high. Providing a humidity box is also a good idea. Take a tupperwear of a suitable size, and melt a hole in the top big enough for your snake to comfortable crawl through it, and fill the box with damp green sphagnum moss, damp aspen shavings, or damp paper towels. This gives your snake a place to go if it wants to be somewhere very humid, and aids during shedding.

Heating
There are a number of ways to heat the enclosure. No matter what, AVOID HOT ROCKS. These provide too localized a heatsource, and can also short out and burn your snake. If you are using a Rubbermaid container, you can use a heat pad under one side. Make sure it doesn't get above 90 in there. I usually keep a small towel or some other peice of cloth between the heating pad and the tupperwear, and fold it as necessary to keep the temperature correct, or if it has a heat setting, adjust it that way. If using heat lamps, 40 to 60 watt bulbs keep the heat about right. You want to provide a thermal gradient so the snake can choose to thermoregulate. High 80s during the day on one side, mid to high 70s on the cool side during the day. At night let the temp drop to about 75. If using heat lamps, you can have one lamp for day, one lamp for night, leave the night bulb on 24 hours a day, and just turn off the day bulb at night.

Feeding
The average feeding routine for just about any snake is once every 5 to 7 days. The General Rule of Thumb is not to feed a food item thats bigger then the thickest part of its body. Small ball pythons can take small to medium adult mice, or crawler to weanling rats. Use common sense on the size of the food item. Adults 4.5 to 5ft generally take large to jumbo rats. When feeding rats, its a good idea to either pre kill, or buy frozen. Almost all ball pythons will take prekilled food, and its a good idea to feed dead rodents if they will take them. A live mouse or rat could seriouly injure or kill your snake. Another thing worth mentioning, is the fact that ball pythons are known for going off food for long periods of times. Especially the males during the breeding season, or the wild cought adults. If your ball python goes of feed for a period of time, don't stress too much over it, just keep offering every now and then. And if all else fails, offer a live gerbil. Gerbils are like Ball Python Crack, though. Sometimes once offered a gerbil, they won't want to take anything else, but sometimes its worth it if your snake is starting to lose weight from refusing to eat.

Shedding
Snakes who are growing quickly will shed pretty often. When your snake goes into shed, it's belly will become pinkish, and eyes will cloud over. Its usually not a good idea to handle them too much during this time period, because it can stress them out, and they are sometimes nippy and crabby. Wouldn't you be too if you were almost totally blind and someone kept messing with you? Once your snake's eyes cloud over, its a good idea to boost the humidity a good deal. It will take the snake 7 to 10 days total to shed. Usually a week after its eyes have cleared up. Don't panic if it takes longer then that, for some it will take a bit longer. If it wasn't quite humid enough, and the skin is stuck, you can soak the snake in the tub or a closed tupperwear with water in it(and air holes of coarse). Let em sit for about half an hour, then gently peel the skin away. Always make sure the eyecapes come off with each shed. Retained eyecaps can cause permenant blindeness or eyeloss if left to build up. If one or both are stuck, you can take a wet Q-tip(after letting the snake soak for a while), and try to gently peel it off.. DO NOT USE YOUR FINGERNAIL! no matter how tempted you get, don't do it. You can damage your snake's eye. If it really does not want to come off, don't be too worried, just wait til the next shed. If it doesn't come off then, a vet visit will probably be needed to remove it. Adult snakes who have slowed their growth will usually only shed every month or two...

Water, Cage Furnature, and Other Stuff
Your snake will always need a fresh supply of water, and a bowl big enough to soak in. Change the water every 5 to 7 days, or moreso, as needed. You can put lots of cool things in your ball pythons enclosure. Peices of drift wood, live plants(make sure they aren't toxic), natural rocks, caves, hide logs.. Just make sure they're all clean, bug free, and easily washed. Ball Pythons like things to hide in, and climb on. And always provide at least 2 places for your snake to hide, preferably one on either side of the thermal gradient, so it doesn't have to choose to hide, or be warm.

Parasites
Chances are, if you cought a wild cought snake, or a snake at a crumby petstore, it has mites, ticks, and/or internal parasites. There are alot of ways to get rid of Mites and Ticks. Prevent-a-mite is great stuff. You can buy it online. Do a search on it and i'm sure you'll find a place who has it. An easy way to kill all the bugs on your snake is to wipe the snake down with a good amount of mineral or vegitable oil. Make sure to get the head, eyes, folds of skin, and cloaca(anal opening). Lube the snake up real good, then let it sit in a holding cage or tupperwear for a half hour or so while you clean its enviroment. You'll want to wash down its cage and all cage furnature with bleach water with a little dishsoap mixed in. Anything that can't be scrubbed clean and sterilized is to be thrown away. If you want to save anything thats wood, soak it, totally submerged in water for a good hour, scrub it real good, and let it dry in your oven with it on the lowest heat setting. This is a good way to make sure any critters or critter eggs on/in it will be dead. Vaccuum the entire area around you snakes tank really good, then take the vaccuum bag outside right away. Wash down all nearby surfaces real good as well. Then to garauntee these little critters won't be back, buy a No Pest strip, those yellow things you hang around your house to get rid of flies and such. Set it ontop of the screen lid to your tank for a few days, take it off for a few more days, then put it back for a few more days. This will pretty much cover the snake mite lifecycle. Also, do not let your snake touch the No Pest strip. It has been known to cause neurological damage. If your snake is in a tupperwear, and you've pretty much sterilized it, and oiled down the snake, just move the tupperwear to a different section of the house. You can do that with tanks as well, if its not too much of a hassle. But do not take anything with it which may have more mites on it. Take it to some far corner of the house, way away from where the snake was. Mites can travel up to 12ft a day. Now to get back to the Oiled Snake. Once the snake has sat for a good half hour or so, you can wipe off as much of the oiled as you can with a towel, then wash the snake with water mixed with a tiny bit of dishsoap. Dry em off real good, and put him back in his now clean and sterilized enviroment, and leave him alone for a few days, as he will probably be pretty stressed over all of this. If you snake has ticks, the oil will usually kill them as well, but you can also just slather down the ticks with Vaseline, leave it for a few hours, then carefully pull the tick off, careful not to leave the mouthparts in the snake. Then rub some Neosporin where the tick was. As for internal parasites, if buying a wild cought snake, always take it to the vet to get treated for internal parasites.

Email: kestrel@antisocial.com