The contents of this page are a result of the many questions asked by the visitors to our page. We do not claim to be experts in herpetology, and the suggestions we make are our opinions based on our own experience. This page is dedicated to anyone with a love for or interest in reptiles, or animals in general...

Questions

Answers

How long will my Ball Python live?

Why won't my snake eat?

Ball Pythons can be difficult to get started feeding, but usually babies are the easiest. You may want to check your snake thoroughly to make sure there's nothing going on that is causing him to not eat or not be hungry. But there really doesn't necessarily have to be anything wrong. That's just how these guys are sometimes! There are a few things you can try. One thing you can do is make a shelter out of a clay flower pot or something similar with a hole in the top that the snake can easily crawl in and out of. In the evening, after you have turned the lights off, introduce a live pinky or fuzzy mouse to the cage. Leave the snake in there overnight and try not to disturb him too much. The reason for the shelter with the hole in the top is because it will be closer to the type of shelter they would have in the wild, and it allows them to be isolated in a safe place from the prey where they can observe the prey. Another thing you can do is to put your snake in a paper grocery bag (with several holes punched in it for air) along with a prekilled rodent, staple the top of the bag shut, and leave it in the tank overnight. Another method is "reflex feeding". You do this by holding a prekilled rodent in a pair of tongs or something similar and lightly tapping the snake toward the middle of their body or on the tail. It is supposed to cause a reflex strike in the direction of the tapping, so I guess if you were lucky you could get your snake to grab the rodent!

What are the advantages of feeding my snake"prekilled" mice or rats?

There are certian advantages to feeding your snake "prekilled" mice or rats. Ball Pythons are not the most aggressive snakes in the world; tossing an aggressive rodent in with your snake could be bad news for your pet. A live rodent will often bite or gnaw on a snake if given the chance. If the snake is not hungry, it will not defend itself against a rodent attack. Snakes have been known to be seriously injured and sometimes killed by a rodent attack. Even a small mouse bite can cause problems with your snake; such as, infections leading to mouthrot or other diseases, not to mention the pain and wound inflicted to your snake. Feeding prekilled rodents prevents this from happening completely. Also, if you feed your snake frozen rodents that have been thawed out and warmed to room temperature, the freezing process kills many harmful bacteria that may be present in the rodent's body when alive.

What do I do if my snake has mites?

 As far as I know, snake mites are not transferable to humans, but I could be wrong. They can kill your snake however, if the problem is left untreated for a long time. One method you can use to get rid of mites is using a No Pest strip in a plastic container with holes punched in it for air exchange. In cages less than 50 gallons a 1/2 inch by 2 inch strip is used for about 12 hours. In bigger cages a 1 inch by 2 inch strip is used instead. This has been known to work well to get rid of mites, however, I have heard that it may be harmful to your animal if not done properly. There are mite medications available in the reptile section at most petstores. I would definitely try one of those first. RidMite does not work as far as I know. Our iguana had mites, and we used this, and by the next morning, there were hundreds more. Maybe we were using it wrong, I'm not sure. The way we got rid of the mites is to get rid of the bark bedding and log we were using, and we put him on artificial turf and used driftwood as a branch instead. We haven't had a problem since. You may want to take a look at the stuff in the cage, in case the mites are coming from that.

How often do Ball Pythons shed their skin?

 Healthy ball pythons will shed their skin several times a year. This is not due so much to growth, but just to the fact that the old skin needs to be replaced. They usually have some trouble shedding in one piece. You can help your ball python shed by placing them in a large container of water, lukewarm to warm for a few hours at a time. A rock placed in the tank can also help them to "rub" off the dead skin.

My snake shedded but it still has caps over it's eyes, what should I do?

 Ball Pythons are notorious for not shedding their eye caps properly. When the snake first goes into shed, the eye caps will appear as a bluish film, sometimes called "blue eye". This is normal. The snake cannot see very well, if at all, at this point, so you may want to be extra cautious when feeding your snake at this time. Extra soaking in a large container of water and making sure the eyes are getting plenty of water on them should help with this. If you notice the eye caps are beginning to loosen off while wet, you can gently rub the skin around the eye to loosen it and the eye caps may come off along with this skin. If the eye caps do not come off, as long as you don't notice any infection building up underneath the cap (pus), it may be best to wait until the next shedding period. Some people use tweezer to pull the eye caps off once loosened. You can try this (make sure they are pretty loose at this point), but you will need a pretty steady hand or you could end up injuring your snake.

How do I forcefeed my snake?

 About force feeding, don't wait until your snake is very thin before trying it, but remember that they can go for a while without food, as long as they are not getting too thin. Force feeding is stressful for the snake, and sometimes it makes them less likely to eat on their own. But if your snake is getting pretty thin, you'll probably want to do it as soon as possible then. I force feed snakes two different ways. One way is with prekilled rodents,and the other way is tube feeding. Tube feeding is easier, and probably allows them to gain weight faster, but whole foods are probably much better for them since they are a more natural food. To feed rodents, I stabilize their body against my arm or I have someone hold onto them. I hold the snake behind the head, and using my thumb I gently pull open their mouth by firmly running my thumb from their "chin"(don't know what the correct term for that is!) to their throat. I then place the head of the rodent in their mouth,gently push it in as far as I can towards their throat and push it up onto their top set of teeth so that it gets hooked onto them. Sometimes if you can get the rodent hooked onto their teeth, they will swallow on their own, and this may be something to try to get them feeding on their own. The next thing I do is take a blunt object, like the butt end of a marker or pen, and push behind the rodents front legs with it. Make sure to hold the snake's mouth shut over the rodent while doing this. They will try to force it out of their throat. I push behind first one front leg and then the other until it starts sliding down their throat. Then I push behind the back legs of the rodent until I have the rodent in almost all the way. Then I push the object on the "butt" of the rodent until I get the rodent all the way into the throat. Be very careful when doing this to make sure you are not forcing too hard, or that the object doesn't slip off of the rodent and jam into the side of the snake's throat or mouth. Also I say push behind the legs, because if you push on the rodent's belly you can puncture it, and then things get really nasty and gross! After I get the rodent all the way into the snake's throat I then hold the snake's mouth closed and using my thumb, I stroke the underside of the snake from front to back, trying the gently push the rodent towards the stomach. Once you get about a tenth of the way down the length of the snake, you should be in the clear. If you don't push it down far enough,they sometimes will throw up the rodent. The way that I tube feed is by mixing baby food beef with heavy whipping cream, reptile vitamins, and a little water to make it go through the tube easier. I have a little catheter that I use, you can buy these at most farm and feed supply stores. I connect the tube to the catheter and then draw some of the gunk up into it. I usually feed them enough stuff to equal the size of a rodent they would normally eat. I then feed the tube down into their throat about a tenth of their length, and then slowly push the food down through the tube into their stomach. When the catheter is empty, I then disconnect the tube from it, and that lets the rest of the stuff in the tube slide out into their stomach.

With both methods, make sure you lubricate either the rodent or the tube with water. This makes things go down alot easier for both you and the snake!The best way to learn how to force feed is to watch someone experienced do it first. That is how we learned. Two good books that have some stuff about force feeding and getting your snake to eat are Vosjolli's book "The General Care and Maintenance of Ball Pythons", and "The Reproductive Husbandry of Pythons and Boas". The second book is where I got the tube feeding recipe. Well, I hoped this helped somewhat. Let us know how things turn out! Good luck with your snake and hope he starts eating soon!