Well, had an interesting day. It begain when my little Bearded Dragon decieded he needed to eat about 40 crickets today. We ran out, and my GF had to run to Petco to get crickets. We usually dont go to petco, or petsmart, ect, but the pet store we normally go to was closed. While she was there, she noticed a Ball Python with a price tag of $129.99, and a note saying please take me home, i have to go. Please keep in mind that my GF is very scared of snakes, and it is one of the reasons we got the bearded dragon, even though i have always been interested in snakes.
She asked one of the four girls working about the python. The girl explained that they normal only keep baby snakes, and this one was about 6 months old, and was getting too big. All the employee's were afraid to handle it(!!) so they were taking it to the humaine society on monday to get rid of it! Knowing that they would probably put the snake down, my GF got abit upset at them, and asked how much they would sell it to her for. They told her that they would sell it for $50 bucks. She agreed to take it, and went about buying an aquarium, hide log, ect.
After she got everything, they went to get the snake out. All the girls working decieded that they were too scared to pick it up. After about 15 minutes of them arguing with each other, they offered to give the snake for free if my GF would pick it up out of the cage! Though she is terrible afraid of snakes, she took him out, and took him home.
All this happened because my Dragon decieded today was a good day to catch us off guard and eat 20 times his weight in crickets. I didnt know of any of it till i got home from work, and im glad she got this poor guy out of a store that obvoiusly cared very little about the animal.
Now that the story is out of the way, i am doing tons of reading and research on Ball Pythons now, to make sure i give him a much better life then he had. The pet store had him in a cage that was obvoiusly designed for the small lizards they keep, and was very cramped. She bought him a 10 gallen tank, but after i got home and saw him,and how big he was, i decieded that tomarrow i am going to go to another pet store and buy everything needed for him, plus a bigger enclosure. I have been doing some reading and have some questions i would love some help with.
For starters, most care sheets, sites, ect, say "For young pythons do this, for old do that". Problem here is, i really have no idea how old he is by looking, and the people at the pet shop were pretty un-trustworthy. I am going to post some pics, and if anyone can give me a good guess at age, i would appreciate it. Second, what should i be feeding a snake this size, and when is a good time to start trying? I have read that he will probably not want to eat right away after moving, but nothing really tells me when a good time to start is. Any other tips would be appreciated.
I will post a few pics, sorry for the blur, dont know why my camera was acting funny.
