Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i've a come across three particularly interesting but yet troublesome problems:

1) my largest female ball has of late, grown about 3-4 inches, put on a fair amount of weight (not sure how much, haven't weighed her), and her last shed was about 30-40 days ago. now, normally this wouldn't worry me, but in the last week shes become extremely lethargic, grown EXTREMELY dark in color, almost to a pure chocolate/black combo, and her belly has turned pink. i tried feeding her last week twice, and she showed no interest in eating (first time in over 6 months). i put her humidity box in her terrarium a week ago. she hasn't shown any signs of shedding (i.e. blue eyes, hazy skin, etc.) ANYONE have any ideas??

2) I acquired a female ball from a trade show here in Ft Myers about two months ago. she's a gorgeous looking snake, the tamest of all that i have, and almost seems to enjoy being curled around my wrist. the problem(s) lie however, in the fact that she will NOT take food by herself. the breeder i bought her from said she had been through her first shed and had taken two meals just fine. i repeated his feeding process, time and time again, along with countless other techniques. then the other night i noticed that her eyes appear to be sort of swirled and opaqish. could she be blind? i know this is a technical question, probably only to be diagnosed by a vet, but i don't know of any quality vets around me.

3) now this is going to sound like a noob question, but i've tried everything. i've got a male ball, 50% het for albino. had him for about a month. i went through my normal acquisition routine, same one every snake i have has been through. this snake however, will continually strike at the terrarium when i WALK BY! he just seems to be mean, and nothing i do has broken him of it. i can pick him up, after a great deal of snipping and hissing, which then continues the entire time he is near me. i can't touch him or go within inches of him without gettin bit, and he is worse when i set him down anywhere near me. anyone have a tried and true method of taming??

any help would be appreciated......

With the first question. I bet you are really close to the shed period and you might have just missed the blue eye phase or it has not happened just yet. I have had this look with ball pythons. Same with the opaque swirrel...I bet she snake is also in a stage of shedding but that is really hard to say without a photo. As far as the aggressive ball python. I would handle it a lot and move its cage away from any traffic. I had one ball python that was like that after i sold it...the snake was great for the time I had it and the new owner complained to me about how afraid he was of this 4 ft python that was his first snake. I bought the snake back and found a new owner that wanted a normal male for some reason to breed. Anyway, they said it was super calm for a while and then developed the temper back. I think it just forgets quickly that you will not hurt it so you need to handle them a lot more. I know that is not fun if the snake is big but thats all I can say unless you have other health problems you are noticing. Make sure you cage temps are good because stressed out snakes will behave as they are stressed out and that might mean aggresion. Is the ft meyers "breeder" Al Haikem? He knows a lot so if he gave you a means of contact I would do that and keep your husbandry of the animal in top condition and offer hides in both warm and cool parts of the tank. These were for sure captive bred and not from gravid imports?

as for the first problem, it sorted itself out today. came home from work to find a full shed in the large females cage, she looks perfect again, and has calmed my previous concerns.

the second problem, the blind, non-eating snake, has not resolved itself. today is feeding day, so we'll see if anything changes with that. i do not want to have to continue assist feeding her. as far as the breeder, no his name was not Al _____. the snake came from a place called Seaside Reptiles, and i think they usually deal with chameleons, but they assured me that it was a CBB, not a WC. however, the more i read and learn, the more i am starting to think that it is a WC from a gravid female.

the third problem, the mean snake, just boggles me. i have never had a snake act like this before. i've had snakes get "pissy" and hiss and strike, but not like this one. still looking for suggestions if anyone has any........