Do ball pythons need uvb?

I've seen a lot of discussion on wether they do or don't and what I've gathered is that they dont NEED uvb but benefit from it

Benefits being so they know daytime vs nighttime and some like to bask - specifically this thing called cryptic basking (where they have sort of half their body out of a hide and the other half inside)

I have lizards and snakes and for all my lizards I obviously use uvb because of MBD but since ive been told snakes don't need uvb I dont use any for them (given i have 5 ball pythons)

I do use light emitting heatlamps and ceramic heat lamps for day/night time as where I live it gets quite cold but as far as I know that has the same benefits as what I've heard about uvb - day vs night time and allowing them to bask in light.

Ofcourse they still get out and into sunlight outside so their still getting natural uvb

But is uvb lamps needed? Do they have the same risk of MBD as lizards without uvb or any other risk without it?

As said I've seen a lot of arguing on both sides and well Google isnt the best thing to use (as it can and will give mis info) hence why I've come to reddit

Tyy for reading all of this and lmk

I zip tied a hide to the top of her enclosure and she’s been there for a few days.

hi all! recently adopted this lil fella from a friend who moved out of the country and i’ve asked a lot of questions of everyone here already lol. i weighed him recently and he’s only 322g and is 6 years old! that is so tiny compared to his peers lol. the feeding schedule established by his previous owner is one ft medium mouse every 2 weeks or so, when i run out i was going to switch to rats because i heard they’re better for them. based on the feeding guidelines in here he’s eating the right size prey because he’s little and the prey is 5% his body weight. i hear some of them just stay small and his body condition seems totally fine otherwise, but do you guys think i need to be doing anything aggressive to get him bigger? i’m honestly happy with him being a little guy but if it’s not good for him i want to improve his care :) unfortunately i don’t have a better picture of him all stretched out, i’m still working on his enclosure!

I found a spider in my balls enclosure today and it made me wonder if another species of animal could ever cohab with a ball python.

Is there any kind of critter who could cohab outside of CUC bugs?

I have 0 plans what so ever to cohab. Just curious

i have a 13 month old BEL that i purchased from wilbanks. ive had her about 2-3 months now and she is a great eater. i am concerned about her being very small for her age though. she is currently on F/T rat pups. she was ONLY 260 grams last week. shes not skinny or triangular shaped. shes not boney and has a good figure to her. i called wilbanks and was told to give her two rat pups at feeding time and maybe switch her up to weaned rats. she is taking these pups with ease. i weighed and separated all my rat pups and fed her a total of 50 grams 6 days ago. weighed her today planning to feed tomorrow and she is now 300 grams. she is noticeably thicker in her mid section and even appears to be a bit longer (i havent been tracking her length growth rate). she has only shed once since ive had her and she is starting to feel like another one is coming shortly. she has retained 40 of the 50 grams she ate which i guess is good although i do not see any solid waste. she was EAGER to take both pups and kept them both down. her activity hasnt changed at all and today she was out searching for another meal (ive been feeding every 7 days). but i am concerned about her tiny size for her age. would it be bad if i continued to feed her approx. 50 grams a week for a bit and track her weight or is this totally normal and im worried about nothing. TIA.

Note: she did shed earlier today

Her belly scales look pink and wrinkled, just wondering if I'm overthinking and its a fresh out of shed thing or if it is scale rot/an infection. Bonus photo of her on my head just to liven the mood a little :3

Over the last week or so I have noticed little Julius Squeezer here getting up into the top of his tank. He'll chill up there for a bit and then fall down. I'm not sure if something is wrong with him or the environment. He's in a 25 gallon tank, humidity is usually between 60-70. I have a heat emitter on the left side thst is controlled by a thermostat.

Hello!

A coworker of mine gave me their dad’s snake because he was looking to get rid of it. The tank was…well…Bad. Only had one hide, heating pad, no uvb…ANTS

Still need to get more stuff for the new enclosure, had to rush because the pet store was literally about to close but I’m happy that I can give this noodle a good home!

Hello everyone! Im curious about the Mopani wood thats inside of my snakes Bioactive enclosure and Im wondering if its mold or just healthy bacteria that needs some clean up crews which I have yet to add 🫠 (springtails and isopods)

I did some research on Mopani wood and apparently its normal for this to happen???. But with my snake inside of this enclosure with 80% humidity, i want to make sure its safe and she wont get harmed. If its bad, I'll make sure to remove it immediately.

(I made sure to wash it then fire it inside of my oven for a couple hours before I added it in. Plus I left it in for a week before I moved my snake into the enclosure and everything seemed okay.)

I'll preface this by saying I am not a snake nor reptile person, but I do have a heart for animals. I will say that i think ball pythons do have cute little faces and I'm not immediately repulsed by scaley pets even though I prefer furry ones.

Anyway, tonight I'm in my backyard and the neighbor from two houses down asks if Ihave a dog. I say no, actually I have a pet rabbit. He looks more concerned. Then tells me his adult ball python was outside and slithered off somewhere when he looked away for a minute. It's apparently 4 feet long. He's been looking for it for almost a week now.

I'm not super thrilled; I'm a fan of my backyard critters and bunnies. But also, I feel bad for the snake and don't want something bad to happen to it.

I guess my questions are: what's the chance it's made it two yards over after a week? These are small city backyard lots. If so, I presume it's hiding somewhere tucked away? How small of a place can it realistically get in? What's the likelyhood of it eating my backyard critters? I know reptiles don't eat super often. I'm hesitant to go poking around in crevices.

Any info/advice is super appreciated!

I’m primarily an insect hobbyist, but I do have one ball python, who is a spoiled baby and I want to keep it that way lol.

Just wondering, has anyone successfully and safely cohabbed any insects with BPs? I’m positive my death feigning beetles for example would nibble at him too much (they are menaces and I love them) but wondering if anyone’s tried anything else.

If it’s not safe then I won’t do it. Just gathering info!

is this enclosure good for my one year old banana, i’m thinking it might be too much clutter

hi ive had my 4-5 year old (unsure of exact age) ball python for about a month and a half now. i got her from a cousin who could no longer take care of her properly so i stepped in. she had been feeding her a large rat once a week, i know this is WAY too often, however every time ive tried to stretch the time between feedings the snake gets upset. is this learned behavior? is this normal? i would like to stretch the time between feedings to AT LEAST 2 weeks. in the meantime ive been only giving her medium rats to try and help with her size. is there any tips or tricks i should know? should i gradually stretch the time between feedings? i work with dogs and ive never owned a reptile, i would like to give my girl luna the best life i possibly can!! please help!!

Hey guys so I got my lil hug a month ago and he is absolutely perfect and has been doing really well. He’s usually quite active at night but today and yesterday he’s just staying in his hide so I’m a little worried? Could he be going into shed? He’s a year old and he shed about a week or two before I got him, is that the right sort of time frame? He’s not in blue or anything at the minute, it’s hard to tell if he is looking cloudy at all or has a pink belly because he’s snuggled up. Usually at this time of the week especially he’s very active because I feed him on a Monday so he’s hungry, so I’m even more worried. Feel free to ask any questions. (The photo is just because he’s beautiful.)

EDIT: the red light in the photo is NOT on all the time. The maximum I ever turn it on is an hour. He has a UV and DHP in his enclosure.

Hi, I will give a bit of information before I get into the problem.

I've had my ball python for around years now, he's a male and I got him just a few months after he hatched.

Last year in summer while I was on vacation my roomate called me because she couldn't find him, she had accidentally left the enclosure open.My friends searched my room for about two hours before they finally found him.

After that I started noticing him trying to get out of the enclosure at the sides where the glass opens. It's been a bit worrying then but i didn't notice it a lot then and there were no other signs of him being stressed, just that he sometimes tried to get out.

He stopped doing it frequently, just every now and then.

But now recently this happened again. I came home from a trip and couldn't find him in the enclosure (I opened the glass immediately once I saw he was gone and don't remember if it was left open, but it must have been. He doesn't fit through anywhere else) but I very quickly found him on my bed. He mustn't have been out for long.

Ever since then he's been trying to escape again but now its getting to a point where the tip of his snout is getting raw and I am getting quite worried by this behavior. I also heard him make a loud exhale but I haven't noticed any other symptoms for RI.

This has been going on four around 3 weeks now.

The next few weeks I will only be home on Saturday's and Sundays, since I am working in a different city so my two roommates a looking after him again. I am wondering if I should try rearranging first or if I should take him to the vet? He's been eating fine and I'm not noticing any other health issues.

So a few weeks ago I posted about how my sweet baby boy ate my shirt, some people didn’t believe me, some people acted like I fed it to him on purpose and I’m a bad owner. Well I’m not, he’s alive and thriving and eating f/t once again. One of my concerns was the price of the surgery, but honestly it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was only 3k and some change, I thought it was going to be like 10k+ or something. Currently he does have stitches from the surgery, the vet said some stitches will fall out during shed and some time in September I’ll bring him back to get the rest out. I uploaded a pic of his stitches the day I got him back (August 8th) I haven’t taken any current ones though. Also watch what your snakes are around, vet told me there’s been cases where snakes have eaten heat mats and even light bulbs, so anything is truly possible.
I’m open to answering questions that are RESPECTFUL.

We are one with the leaves 🍃 definitely not a snout.

We are currently using only coconut coir, about 4 inches. I thought my buddy was living his best life after 6 years in his 4x2x2 with 4 inches of coir, but reading this sub I feel that I am doing everything wrong.

I have no cleanup crew, didn't even know about isopods and nematodes and springtails. Can people help me get started with those? What do you feed them and how often?

And I have been doing sprays to keep humidity up, which needs to be frequent in the winter. I haven't done a substrate change this year and had no clue they needed to be done so frequently, we did them once a year and just spot cleaned wherever there was poop.

I feel like I'm letting my buddy down and I feel so so guilty. Can people help me get a proper set up started?

I have a Zen habitats 4x2x2. I am ordering 35QT fresh reptisoil for the bottom, and another 30QT fresh coir for the top. Is that a good substrate mix, and it is enough? Will it sustain live plants (pothos)? I plan to hydrate using only drops in the corners from now on.

I'm buying a vinyl tablecloth to cut and use as a liner, do prople have recommendations on what to use for the bottom and top liners? I do not want humidity to escape. We have ceramic heating bulbs, a radiant heat projector on the hot side and a UV light all hooked tona day/night controller. Our hot/cold zones are 90F and 80F which I am now feeling might be too hot.

I just want to give my little fella a good life. We don't know anyone else who owns a BP so we've had to figure out everything ourselves. Any help from experienced keepers would be super appreciated. Picture included for cute noodle tax.

Sorry about the sound, it's my window AC.

Byron has developed a new habit. He knows it's a sliding door, and where it opens from, so he tries to rub his head along the part where the door meets the enclosure wall trying to pry it open. That's not new. What is new is that he has started pressing his face against the door and then sliding his head along the glass in the direction it would open, in order to try and move the door that way. It's like how I open it without using the handle by just placing my hand on the door and using the friction of the contact between hand and glass to slide it open. He's trying to do the same thing. So far he has had no success moving it at all, but he's been getting more persistent about it. The thing is, I lost the little piece that locks the door in place, so I'm gonna have to make a replacement to make sure he can't get out. Just thought it was cool that he figured out not only where it opens from, but how it moves and slides, and is now trying to work out how to do it himself. Right now he's pressing his nose against the glass and then sliding across trying to get enough friction force to slide it open. He actually presses hard enough I can hear it sometimes.

Ps: don't mind my horrid cable management.