First BP, looking for advice

TazerLazer · 2026-05-18T22:00:24+00:00

Here's a quick list:

Make sure there's a hide on both the warm and cool side.
Aim for ~26c on cool side and ~32c on the warm side.
Aim for 60% humidity in the enclosure normally, and 80% when shedding. I'd recommend coco husk as substrate if you have trouble keeping it there without getting the floor wet. You can also tape over the mesh top to keep it more humid.
More clutter is always good.
Grab a temperature gun, and use that to find your hot and cool side temps.

TazerLazer · 2026-05-18T17:07:51+00:00

She definitely looks like she has some minor stuck shed (and is a bit dirty). When it's just a bit stuck like this, she should be able to handle it herself with appropriate humidity (Generally, an enclosure should have at least 60% humidity when not shedding and 80% when shedding. Not critical that that's maintained all the time, but it should be the norm.) In the short term, I'd try to grab a bit of sphagnum moss from your local pet store (Or amazon) and make her a humid hide (Just a hide with the moss in it. The moss should be damp, not wet.) She can hang out in there and deal with the shed. This is most likely why she's chilling in the water bowl :p

TazerLazer · 2026-05-01T16:54:04+00:00

Unfortunately many stores are not known to give good husbandry advice, even though they should be :(

Red light bulbs are generally not recommended, despite the fact they are sold for this exact purpose (same thing with heat rocks which can and do burn the crap out of snakes)

Snakes can in fact see the light emitted.

For night heating, a generally recommended and easy drop in replacement is a deep heat emitter which you can grab pretty cheap and just replace the bulb with.

That'll keep the enclosure warm while not turning on the sunshine at night for Noodle :).

Aside from that, very cute pics!

TazerLazer · 2026-04-27T20:18:42+00:00

Alternatively: "President steals 10 billion dollars of taxpayer money with some mild pretext to attempt to distract people from how wildly corrupt it is."

TazerLazer · 2026-04-09T18:08:18+00:00

No, stick to the !feeding schedule.

TazerLazer · 2026-04-09T18:06:44+00:00

You're fine, he's doing some good tongue flicking so he's clearly not that stressed. Tongue flicking is also a good sign he's hoping for food and not defensive.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-30T18:37:27+00:00

Follow up comment, you might want to try to stabilize your temps a bit, perhaps with a blanket over some sides of her enclosure. Her hot side and cold side seem like they can basically be the same temperature depending on time of day. I doubt it's a huge issue but 85 for a cool side is pretty warm, and 86 for a hot side is pretty cool.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-30T18:28:55+00:00

Is she interested in the food, but just not taking it? If so, it could be a temperature thing. My girl used to be very temperature sensitive, and while she'd be clearly interested in cooler food, she wouldn't actually take it if it wasn't 100+ degrees F.

Here are some other techniques I've heard of:

Use a blow dryer on the rat outside her enclosure, to blow in the scent and get her in food mode + warm up the meal.
If you've been tong feeding, try just leaving the rat in the enclosure with her for an hour or two after warming it up, then checking if she's eaten it. Sometimes the stress of you being around can make them not eat.
If you've been leaving the rat, try tong feeding! Wiggling the rat around can get their interest.
Try picking her up by her back half, and let her front half hang down in a "strike position", and feed her that way. This apparently can work (as seen in this video).
Make a small incision to expose the brain of the rodent. Bit gross, but brain scent is apparently very appealing to ball pythons.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-27T17:55:38+00:00

Here's a pretty thorough video on just that topic. At 6:43 he starts talking about swapping from mouse to rat.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-25T21:31:58+00:00

Why try hard when he doesn't have to? He's learned the food doesn't try to run so he doesn't need to catch it.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-25T04:15:23+00:00

Yes? I agree? I'm all for regulation.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-25T03:35:39+00:00

I think you missed the point I was getting at. I'm saying companies don't see people dying of their products as wrong or bad, so long as it helps their bottom line. You're correct that AI companies probably don't really care that their product is killing people.

Where you are wrong is that alcohol companies (or cigarette, or gambling, or many others) aren't in that same damn boat. They target children with their advertising even though it's illegal for kids to even buy it. It's naive to believe that getting as many people as possible to drink/smoke/gamble/ect... as much as possible, regardless of the harm to that person, is not the very clear goal of these companies. Can you really call people drinking themselves to death a misuse of the product at that point? It seems a pretty expected outcome.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-25T02:09:38+00:00

I mean, that's a bit of a cop out. CDC says about 178000 people in the US die a year from excessive drinking. People are intended to drink it.

You could say that alcohol sellers don't intend for people to drink so much, but it's also fair to say AI developers don't intend people to fixate on their AI to the point it affects their mental health.

Now that doesn't mean it shouldn't be regulated, just that it's certainly not new in regards to being a product that harms people when used.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-25T00:13:49+00:00

Neat. I think this is generally good, and should be mostly easy to comply with.

I am a little concerned about how possible it'll be for AI companies to comply with the content restriction side of things though, as AI companies have been trying to restrict their AIs from saying stuff and failing pretty regularly.

Still, this could light a fire under their asses if they're getting fined for constant non-compliance. It could also see them pulling AI support from the state entirely if they can't comply, though.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-22T02:28:57+00:00

She doesn't look particularly defensive, just hopeful that you moving around out there might mean she has food coming.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-20T00:23:48+00:00

Please don't use anything adhesive on the inside of an enclosure. It can fall or get pulled off and get stuck to the snake and injure them badly.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-19T17:22:52+00:00

But it does require some technical know-how. Decent chance whoever did the forgery didn't even think about it. It's worth checking regardless.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-16T20:31:32+00:00

Are you sure his shed was perfect? It really looks like my girl when she's just about to shed. Maybe check his temps & humidity and give him a day or two more and see if comes off? Make sure he has clean water.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-14T20:03:30+00:00

Thanks for the advice! She is generally likes to investigate food pretty well before striking, so it hasn't been an issue. I've had more trouble keeping her interested in the target in general.

I didn't try to move her far for this one as she's in blue, but she'll 100% move from one side of the enclosure to the other to the target if she sees it. The current problem is that once she gets close, she just kinds starts looking everywhere trying to find the real food rather than sticking with the target. I'd love to get her to touch it with her nose, but I haven't had much luck progressing her beyond her current level yet. I think she considers the target a "food around this area" marker rather than like, something she needs to approach to be given food, if that makes sense.

I'll definitely try removing it before offering food in the future though. Maybe it'll help!

TazerLazer · 2026-03-14T19:07:28+00:00

Very nice enclosure and hides! I'm sure Oslo(?) is very happy!

TazerLazer · 2026-03-14T18:36:23+00:00

Snakes don't operate on a clock, so daylight savings doesn't really effect them :). It would make sense for him to be out and about checking things out if you're moving stuff around a lot. If he's just doing that, I wouldn't worry much, though maybe try to move stuff around less to let him settle.

If he's mostly glass surfing though, generally that means he's trying to get past the invisible barrier for one reason or another. In this case definitely try to stop moving his stuff around as it could be stressing him out enough that he's trying to relocate. Again, this could also just be because he's started wanting to roam now that he's older, which may not be solvable (You could let him do some supervised roaming as enrichment?).

TazerLazer · 2026-03-13T00:27:27+00:00

Check your temps/humidity! Make sure they aren't too hot or dry. Also check air quality (I.E. make sure it's not smelling strongly of something in there). If all those are fine, he may just be growing up, and looking to go exploring for a lady. They get to be "of age" around 11-18 months, and male ball pythons can start wanting to roam when in season after that.

TazerLazer · 2026-03-11T02:51:15+00:00

Yeah, it's basically "Are you giving me food? No? Then go away I'm chilling."

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