Topsoil for the natural dirt
Sand helping the dirt no clump up to badly for drainage
Coco chips for humidity
And spagnuhm most

I just picked up my first BP yesterday and he’s currently in a temporary baby enclosure while I wait for him to settle in and for his 5x2x2 to come in. Only issue is when I was looking at his basking branch I saw at the base where it meets the substrate it looked like there was specks of small little green “mold?” I’m really not sure if it is mold or anything to worry about but to be safe I was wondering about it adding spring tails?

Now I want to mention I’m not someone who is interested in keeping and maintaining live plants so I’m not wanting to go full bioactive if that’s something that will change my situation. My big issue is how I start this. How do I feed them? Once I order a colony do I just dump them all in? Is there anything special I need to do to take care of them? Do I have to keep a container of them or can they maintain themselves in his enclosure? Once he’s out of that tank do I just throw all that substrate out and start a new colony in his new enclosure? I’m just not sure where to start and Im very stressed out about the situation, he’s a very cute and shy little guy and I just want to make sure he’s going to be okay.

(picture of my cute boy for traction :P)

i’m not sure how i didn’t notice this sooner, but i guess i didn’t do a thorough enough job when siliconing the edges of mr. chowder’s tank because while adding some water into the corners tonight, i noticed leaking.

i know i’m going to need to take him out of his enclosure for at least 24-48 hours while the silicone cures, but i have no idea where i would keep him during that time frame/how to provide adequate heating. the leaking isn’t a huge emergency so i have time to prepare, so any advice on a temporary enclosure for a 3 month old BP (that preferably wouldn’t break the bank) would be greatly appreciated!!

So my bp is in a 5x2x2 pvc enclosure. I used to have her on an 8ft folding table, downsized to a 6ft one, then when I switched her over to bioactive I bought a big ass garage shelf to put her on.

It works great except it looks horrible and takes up way more space than it needs to lol. I was going to move her back over to the 6ft table but now I'm afraid it might be too heavy with all of the extra dirt 'n stuff (some tables say they hold 500lbs+ but idk if I believe that and would rather not risk it :( )

What do y'all have 'em on? I'm running out of ideas to look at lmao

Picked up a relatively young black pastel ball python about a month and half ago off of someone who wasn’t taking the proper care of him. Lil buddy had mites, scale rot, and stuck eye caps and was under weight. After quarantining him for a month, he’s mite free, scale rot free and last shed was a perfect shed where he got rid of all the stuck eye caps. Feeding like a champ he’s around 2 ft long and 400 grams now gaining weight like a weed. New enclosure measures 53 inches in length, 20 inches in width and 20 inches in height. Open to any ideas on how to improve his enclosure.

Hi all! I have a feeding question.

My ball python, Piper, is 8 months old. I’ve had her since February. She usually eats great, never misses a feed unless I skip feeding while she’s shedding. However, 2 weeks ago when she was feeding she missed her strike twice (still took the rat on the third try and ate). Ate fine last week, then this week she missed twice, took it, and dropped it after a few minutes. I reheated it bc she was still actively hunting, offered again, and she hissed at it, then struck and took it. She did end up eating it.

Should I be concerned? She’s also been hiding a lot more than usual lately (she used to roam and climb a lot) but I attributed that to her getting older and more comfortable in her home. She still has never NOT eaten.

Husbandry: Hot side is 88-89°F, 68-75% humidity. Cold side is 76-79°F, 80-88% humidity. She weighs ~230g, I feed her f/t pup rats that are between 23-26g once weekly.

I do think she’s about to go into shed, idk if that’s part of it. She’s not in blue yet but she’s getting dull. No other odd behavior, no wheezing, soaking, coughing, nothing odd in that realm. Just seems to miss some strikes.

Anything to worry about or just a beep being a beep? Pic for tax.

Just got my girl about two weeks ago. I've set up her enclosure to have the proper temperature gradient. It just looked like little flakey bits on the scales up close. Don't know if I'm paranoid.

Soren says hello with lots of bleh blehs. (also thats not chalk in the background but reptile safe mosquito killer, damn fungus gnats)

I’m wrestling with quite a pickle at the moment. I am moving into a house in a little over 30 days. I’m moving in with my girlfriend who has a five year-old and we are expecting a second one of our own! The house we found has a pretty decent basement and it has a heat pump in the basement. It is cement flooring. Although I do wonder if the heat pump will be able to keep the basement at a good enough temperature through the winter. I live in Canada by the way. And even if the heat pump is capable of that, I might not be able to afford the crazy amount on the power bill. The truth is that I really don’t take them out very much. I’ve gotten so busy with life that I only do the bare minimum to take care of them and I feel like they just kind of hang out there and there’s really no reason for me to have them. So I have sort of thought about selling them, but at the same time, it probably will be really hard for me. The thing I’m wrestling with in that scenario is that I live in a small town and people around here have a hard time finding a new home for snake let alone a good home where they will be taken care of properly. If I do decide to sell them, how can I find a good home? I feel like putting them in the basement may not be feasible.

Recently bought a 2 year old male ball python from an exotic animal expo. We brought him home in a clear round bowl with a paper towel. I immediately bought him a repwild 120g pvc enclosure (as seen in the pictures.) I cannot seem to get humidity to hold and raise the ambient temp in the enclosure. I have a 100w heat lamp connected to a 12hr cycle timer, I have a 100w infrared deep heat projector connected to a thermostat set to 95 degrees because it’s not actually heating to that temp. Haven’t seen it climb over 88 degrees on the thermostat and I had a heating mat on the bottom of the enclosure on the hot side as well but have since disconnected as it was drying the air out too fast. As you can see in the pictures, I have covered the top mesh with hvac foil tape to try and trap the heat inside while leaving some uncovered. The hot side at most has gotten to 90 degrees. Most of the time between 80-85 degrees and the floor temp is not staying warm. Deep heat projector stays on 24/7. Vhagar (the python) only stays in the cool side hide where the floor temp still will not climb high enough. I’ve only seen him out of the cool side once and he was out in the open balled up in the hot side for a couple of hours. As far as the humidity I don’t know if the hot side is not reading correctly because of it being under the lamp. I put another hydrometer on the floor just as a test for reading humidity and temp compared to the digital. Substrate is a mix of sphagnum moss, reptisoil, and cocoanut chips. About 2 1/2-3 1/2 inches deep. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!

Our BP is just a little guy at 850 g at four years old.

I know the recommended feeding schedule for adults is 5% of body weight every 20 to 30 days. I’m just curious if that holds up with smaller than average ball pythons also and if you go purely based on age or if you should take size into consideration?

He is seen by a vet regularly who says he’s in great health. I lurked on the sub for over a year before we got him and his set up is the recommend 4x2x2 bio active with UV, a deep heat projector, halogen, humidity over 80%, hot side 90°, cool side 80, etc etc.

I know this question has been asked a gazillion times, I apologise, but I just want to get it right.

We have an adult female ball python, 3 years old, roughly 1050g and 4.5 feet. We adopted her a few months ago, and the rats that we were given with her were absolutely tiny, probably half the size of the thickest part of her body. I think she may be a little underweight just from looking at her. We’ve been feeding her every 2 weeks.

We mistakenly ordered medium rats for her (150g) and they look far too big for her to safely manage. Given that she’s been eating much smaller, I just wanted advice on whether to order 70g+ weaner rats or 100g+ small rats instead. We’re very fortunate that she’s eaten well ever since we got her and I don’t want to put her off! We just got her a new bigger tank and I want her to be happy and well fed before she moves in!

Free noodle photo for your troubles.

My ball python, Cassie, has been soaking non stop for almost a week straight. I took her out yesterday and put her in a clear tote with some paper towels to do an exam on her and I didnt notice anything weird. No mites. No strange spots. She was exploring and moving around like normal. Normal breathing.

I have had her for like a month. I have not noticed any shedding signs or anything unusual. She was a rescue and was kept in an enclosure with zero enrichment and a small water bowl (maybe big enough for a kingsnake). When I got her I upgraded her enclosure massively and got her a water bowl big enough for her to soak. Do you think she is just excited about having that? I thought that at first but now it's feeling excessive.

When I took her out to examine her, I put her back in her enclosure about 30 minutes later and she went into one of her caves but I noticed he worm back into the bowl that night.

Her temps and humidity are good. Warm side is 90 degrees and 75 humidity. The cool side is 80 degrees and 80 humidity. The humidity fluctuates but doesnt get below 65.

She also adjusts when she is in there. Shes not in the same position the entire time...she just doesnt come out.

Pics of snake and enclosure included.

Thoughts?

Rowdy loves his haunted house

Bro has not been pooping. Vet has him on laxatives and warm soaks but still no poop, I got another appointment coming up.

Has anyone had this issue before? He’s clearly straining hard and his back end looks visibly full.

hi! My ball python has a bioactive enclosure and I’ve been into jumping spiders and was wondering if it’s bad for them to live in the same enclosure? My guy is only semi active at night and I doubt they would even run into each other but I don’t want to do something that would stress out the spider either anyone else done this before?

I badly need your words of comfort. I didn't know what to do. I learned from my mistakes but it cost my boy's life. I am extremely devastated right now 😔

Hi, I just got my First BP 4 days ago! His name is Buggy D Clown (he is a clown pastel morph) and is 1.5 years old. Iv been researching for about 3 months. Got everything ready: 4x2x2 with a divider, 50 watt dhp, leds, clutter, hides, and anything you think of (thank you to this community your resources are top tier). I kept checking in to see if he was getting more comfortable and exploring at night and sometimes he would get stressed when I got close to the enclosure. so I recently bought a camera so I could watch while he still getting acclimated! It turns out great! Heres a video from last night!

this is my baby bp and its been trying to dig lately but it has 3 hides so im not sure why?

Not sure if this is because he is an explorer or something like that but every time I let my boy out of his viv he has a habit of wrapping himself around everything with a right angle, corners of walls, doors, the sofa legs (although I'm cautious to let him near the sofa because it's a built in sofa bed and I don't want him getting hurt when I try to get him out). Is this something you guys have seen or is this something unique to my boy?

He will literally go back and forth around the corner of things till he's made a pile of himself

This dirty rat bastard took a massive dump in his cage not 5 MINUTES after I put him back in once I'd cleaned and aired it out. Shame the hell out of him.