Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This woman was giving away a ball python, so I went to look at it.

I get there, and this poor snake is in bad shape. Not HORRIBLE...but bad nonetheless.

It's 8 months old.
About a foot.
Dehydrated, stuck shed, thin.
It was in a 10 gallon tank, newspaper bottom, with only a heat rock, a TINY water dish, and one of those "reptile rocks" for decoration.
No hide...nothing.

I went to pick it up and she was like "he should be good, I fed him two weeks ago, so he should be all set for a while..."

I bit my tongue and said "I'll take him. Thanks, bye" and left as fast as possible.

He's in a 28 qt. Sterilite at the moment, in quarentine. I'm going to give him/her a few days and try feeding. I soaked him as I set up his cage today.
I'll post pics later.

I don't understand what is so hard about RESEARCHING animals. She said she got it from a friend for free...
A: If you don't want it, don't take it.
B: Ever heard of the internet? Even IF you don't have a computer, the library has them...or at the very least, Petco has care sheets. IT'S NOT HARD!!!

Ok...I vented.
Thanks for listening all.

-KOS
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

Hi! I commend you on a job well done. I to have a 8 month old rescue that is 14in. so I know what you are up agonised. And if I could recommend something to you ,take it to a reptile vet and have a stool sample to give them so they can run a fecal on it to see if it needs to be treated for internal parasites.
PS. GOOD LUCK WITH ALL YOU DO !!!! David

That's a nice snake, and awesome pics.

My cat would eat my snakes. Haha.
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

I know what you mean. My snakes would eat my cat.

lol love the pics i thought i was alone in my cats like wierd animals *my boy cat loves his little mouse i bought him i just put it on his back and off they go and they dont seem to mind when my male bp comes up and spends time with them* ahhh btw i decided today lets all boycott petco...went there to pick up some feed for my mice and i noticed something odd in the rodent cages...a degu..in a cage labeled hamster. i called a lady over and told her it wasnt and she sat there and flat out it couldnt possibly be the label says hamster so i then informed her she would kill it feeding it rodent food *degu's are natural diabetics and corn and stuff in rodent food has sugars* so i got flustered and whipped out the credit card and dada jake to the rescue..now my gf is mad at me oh what a world

that's awful! What area are you in? contact the general manager and complain, or if you can get the number of their RCAC (the person who's supposed to go around making sure the animals are properly cared for) and complain to them, they'll definately make sure something's done.

I work at a Petco, and I know the staff at mine is pretty knowledgable...but we're also pretty close to corporate headquarters. Not all Petcos were created equally, I guess!
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1.1 normal ball pythons (Cindy and Darwin)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
2.1 betta fishes (Vicious, Killer, and Butters)
3.1 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
2.0 horses (Buddy and Sam)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
2.25 chickens (Jacques the rooster and his harem)

but what I really want is more ball pythons!

I had to tell a lady the other day that at 3 feet long, she had to feed her snake more than just two mice once a month. And she was saying she wanted to breed her snake!

Petco has caresheets for ball pythons all over the place because they're our most commonly sold snake.

I've had my girl for fourteen years, and it just sickens me to see/hear how horribly these snakes are cared for, when with proper care they can be so gorgeous.

My coworkers and I rant on the same way you do about people not researching animals before they buy them. Turtles and iguanas are abandoned at our store on a sadly regular basis.

~jenny
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1.1 normal ball pythons (Cindy and Darwin)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
2.1 betta fishes (Vicious, Killer, and Butters)
3.1 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
2.0 horses (Buddy and Sam)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
2.25 chickens (Jacques the rooster and his harem)

but what I really want is more ball pythons!

I remember my first rescue, it wasn't a ball python though, she was a burm, and the store I got her from was feeding her one small mouth per month and she was 6 months old. She was skinny and underfed and cranky, but hey I'd be cranky too if you'd stuck me in a corner and only fed me a carrot every thirty days. We brought her home, got her a larger water dish first off, fed her four mice, which she ate and gave that look like umm got more? She was nine feet long before we agreed to let another person take her. I was just horribly picky about who she went to. The person I gave her to had purchased and set up a 150 gallon aquarium in his house, he'd built it into the wall and had a great set up for her already. I seen that and I knew he was the one. He already had another burm which was in excellent health so I knew. Good luck with her and thanks for telling ya story

That's great that the snake has a better home. I rescued a ball, from someone my husband knew (not a friend). The snake was kept in a small kritter keeper on a heat rock inside an aquarium with an iquana. She had no bedding, shelter, or water. The lady showed us her future meal and it was a small rat. The snake was the size of a hatchling and severely dehydrated. We brought her home, and when put in the cage she started drinking. Her head was halfway under the water for a few minutes. I took her head out to make sure she was okay and she immediately went back to drinking. I weighed her after that and she was 138 grams. In a six month time period she was over 1800 grams. Feeding small meals once a week. I'm hoping to get some babies from her in the future.

J. Allen