Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Monday I bought a beautiful 3-month-old ball from a very reputable breeder in my state. He is not my first herp, but he is my first snake so this is a little new to me. Anyway, I was told that the ball I bought had been feeding on frozen adult mice so I went and bought some (Gourmet Rodent) and they look big. It is hard for me to believe that my little snake can fit this mouse into his head. Is that a normal thought for beginner snake keepers? If adult mice are too big, what is the next smallest size I should look for? I would appreciate any other tips you can give me about being a good ball keeper as well. Books are great (and I have read a several), but some info is best gotten from other keepers. Thanks a lot!

Besides not eating, what are the signs of a stressed snake? I've read that babies can get stressed if they are kept in enclosures that are too big. I have my new baby in a clear, 3 foot long, 1 foot wide, and 18 inch high rubbermaid with three hides, a water dish, aspen bedding, and two grape vine sticks for climbing. The temp gradient is 94 to 75. If the snake comes out and looks around, climbs around, and poops, does that mean he is doing alright? I'm just wondering because I keep hearing about how reclusive balls are, and how they hide most of the time. My new one doesn't seem reclusive at all, so it is making me wonder if everything is alright. Maybe I'm just paranoid, and these are dumb questions, but I don't want to screw up. Ya know what I mean?

I dont have a ball python yet but from all I have read about them he is probably doing fine in this enclosure. As long as he has enough hide spots that arent' too big for him. As for the feeding I have always read that if the widest point on the mouse is wider than the widest point on the snake its too big for it too eat. If it the mouse is to big you can try to get hopper mice which are smaller. It also may be that he is still feeling out his new cage and doesnt' want to eat yet. I just posted about how long I should wait before feeding it after I bring it home and one guy said to wait a week, so that may be it as well.
Good luck.

Hello,
Welcome to the BP forum! I bought my little ball when he was about 2 months. He had just been switched over to adult mice and I thought that he looked too small to eat them. I fed him one fuzzy (baby mouse just before opening eyes) about 4 days after I got him and then 5 days later fed him a f/t mouse which, though I thought it looked too big for him, he got down easily. A three month old ball python shouldn't have much trouble getting down an adult mouse. Your new ball probably is just acclimating himself to his new enclosure right now with all his crawling around. Also, snakes will crawl around the enclosure a lot more when they are hungry. On any substrate that can be swallowed, any sort of bark or chips, it is always a good idea to feed your ball python in a separate container with no substate in it or just a sheet of newspaper. If your snake is readily eating, I wouldn't worry too much about stress, the enclosure size is fine so long as your snake continues to eat. Good luck.
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Steve
2.0 Corn Snakes
2.0 Ball Pythons
0.1 Veiled Chameleon
1.1 Leopard Geckos
1.1 Rudis Chameleons
0.1 Giant Day Gecko
0.0.3 Red Ear Sliders
0.0.2 Sulcata Tortoises
1.0 Central American Banded Gecko

Hi. I don't have a ball...yet...but fequent this forum because I love them so much. We've just recently gotten our first snake, about a month ago. I thought I'd share with you that as a first-time snake owner, I went through the same fear you did. I bought the size mouse that I'd been told he was eating...fed it to him...and then was really scared that I'd killed my snake or something because that mouse looked HUGE compared to his little head. How could he possibly get it down safely? But he did. Sometimes he eats two of them! It's one of the truly fascinating things about these creatures that I love.

Good luck!
Judy
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1.0 red cape gopher (Caesar)

np