Why do people consider Ball Pythons the throw away pet??!!

[Binky/Carol]

In the past 2 months.. I have rescued 6... yes 6 ball pythons from people in the surrounding areas.

The latest, makes me the madest.
This 2 yr old ball python is not much bigger than a 6 month old BP.
He was kept in a 30 gallon breeder, with one hide. No decent substrate , 2 huge water bowls, and a few pieces of drift wood.
Instead of looking online for information she kept going to the local pet stores.
Who of course gave her conflicting information:wall:

When he was sold, they didn't make sure he was feeding well, He was probably a new born shipped straight from the captive hatch facility.
He has never had the right humidity, he had twoo YES TWO heat lamps on the screen .
Luckily I was the first to email her, and follow up. So I got him and all his stuff.
Last sunday I drove some 60 miles to get one..
The four I got in Dec/Nov, 2 were from a young couple with a baby on the way, and a near 1 yr old.
This one came from a mom expecting her first. The one last sunday was pregnant, AND had 2 kids.. And the other 2 came from a beleagured grandma who had to take care of grandkids, and work 2 jobs.

Every single one of them is smaller than they should be except one who is about the right size for his age. The smaller one that came with him, was housed with him...
They don't do well together...
Sigh.. I wonder what next week will bring.
I will get pics up when I get home.

Carol

 

[bluefrogtat2]

cheap

because they are cheap people with even the slightest interest in pythons tend to want to experiment with a non expensive species(common ball python)has been a problem since the mid eighties,rescued many myself back in the day
andy

 

[halfwaynowhere]

people see the cute little babies in the petstore thinking its a fairly low maintanance pet. well, they are pretty low maintainance if you get them set up properly in the first place. People don't realize that they grow. They see this little 12"-18" snake thats just too cute for words, and its affordable. People do the same thing with all types of pets. The resources are out there, but so many people just don't think of it. They assume that they are doing the right thing, because thats what the pet stores tell them.

 

[arachnocat]

I'm just glad there are people like you who rescue them so they can go to better owners. I see ads for ball pythons all the time in my area. Luckily we have a reptile rescue nearby and they take most of them in. Ball pythons and iguanas are the most common reptiles they have up for adoption. People just don't think before they buy pets like that and pet stores don't help by giving people the wrong info on how to care for them.

 

[Spinarak]

Please forgive me if I sound arrogant, but this pisses me off too and I tend to get on a soap box and rant. While many exotic keepers are resisting policy and legislation that restrict what we can own and breed I truly support it for this very reason. Most people should not own exotics at all, but because they are so accessible to the public any weekend warrior can pick up a BP on impulse. After the novelty wears off they run to zoos and other organizations trying to palm it off - but the zoos are already overwhelmed from this. Most are just not prepared for having to feed rodents to an animal that if well cared for will outlive their dogs and cat. What's worse is these animals suffer a slow death as their owners have no idea about proper husbandry, nor do they care to know - and a visit to the vet is out of the question!

The reason BP are so vulnerable is because they are sold as a great first snake. Every time I see some one considering any exotic I encourage them to join a forum where they can get a wealth of information. The pet shop clerk can't possibly say all there is to say in 15 minutes. I'll stop here...sorry.

 

[halfwaynowhere]

Please forgive me if I sound arrogant, but this pisses me off too and I tend to get on a soap box and rant. While many exotic keepers are resisting policy and legislation that restrict what we can own and breed I truly support it for this very reason. Most people should not own exotics at all, but because they are so accessible to the public any weekend warrior can pick up a BP on impulse. After the novelty wears off they run to zoos and other organizations trying to palm it off - but the zoos are already overwhelmed from this. Most are just not prepared for having to feed rodents to an animal that if well cared for will outlive their dogs and cat. What's worse is these animals suffer a slow death as their owners have no idea about proper husbandry, nor do they care to know - and a visit to the vet is out of the question!

The reason BP are so vulnerable is because they are sold as a great first snake. Every time I see some one considering any exotic I encourage them to join a forum where they can get a wealth of information. The pet shop clerk can't possibly say all there is to say in 15 minutes. I'll stop here...sorry.

I totally agree... I have run into several people who do rescue, who think we should legalize ferrets in CA, for example. Umm, anyone involved in rescue should know that we don't need yet another species to become overpopulated because of uneducated pet owners...
Anyone considering any pet needs to do as much research as possible before obtaining that pet.

 

[Mina]

Because BP's are inexpensive for snakes, easy to get, and tend to be very docile and sweet no matter how horrible the conditions are that they are kept in. Matthias once said that ball pythons are the snake hobby's rosehairs, and he is right.
We have an almost 3 year old male that we adore, I don't know why people are so hard on them and seem to dislike them, I've even been almost flamed here for suggesting one as a good first time pet. Yes, I know they have certain husbandry requirements, but they are generally so sweet and gentle is disposition that I thought it was a worthwhile statement.
Thank you from Matthias, Dax (our BP) and myself for giving those poor mistreated babies a loving, healthy home.

 

[arrowhd]

The truley said part about this is that it is happening everywhere.

 

[dtknow]

Yeah...the ridiculous part is that they are very long lived even for snakes. I've seen records for specimens over 40 years old.

 

[Spinarak]

Yeah...the ridiculous part is that they are very long lived even for snakes. I've seen records for specimens over 40 years old.

Parents buy them for their kids and then when they go off to college/service and they don't know what to do with them. As I said these animals suffer with internal parasites and mites and a dozen other stress-related conditions that come from abusive handling (pass a round at the party), living in a fish tank with no shield from drafts or central air and cigarette smoke, and being part of an entertainment unit for the sake of nuance (snakes don't hear well but are very sensitive to vibrations), or being placed low enough for little, banging hands to terrorize.

Oh. let's not forget the thrill of the kill...nothing pleases Junior more than to watch his cool snake do battle with a rodent in closed quarters. In the wild it decides when to come out of hiding to hunt - a lot different from tossing a live animal in a fish tank forcing the snake into fight mode when it least expects it. Also, in the wild a rat or gerbil will choose flight over fight, but in captivity with it's back against the wall the rodent becomes a formidable opponent, especially against a startled snake. Okay...I'll stop again. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Tleilaxu]

I thought cornsnakes were the throw away snakes? Its sad either way though.

 

[Spinarak]

I thought cornsnakes were the throw away snakes? Its sad either way though.

It's any pet that can be bought on a whim in a pet shop. And you're right, it's sad either way.

 

[dtknow]

One more thing.

With them being some commonplace and also coming in different colors(corns and balls) it is a bit hard to see them as wild animals.

you mean those live in the wild somewhere??

 

[pitbulllady]

Face it-we LIVE in a "Throw-Away" society-everything is disposable, humans included. We eat on disposable plates using disposable utensils, we drink from disposable cups, cans and plastic bottles, our food comes neatly packaged in disposable wrappers and containers, we put disposable diapers on babies and clean their bottoms with disposable wipes. When our tv's, computers, cell phones and other electronic devices go on the fritz, we dispose of them and buy a new, and often-better, replacement, since it's more trouble and expense, most of the time, to repair it than to replace it. When ANYTHING becomes a bit of a problem, the usual solution is simply to get rid of it-dispose of it-and get a new one, rather than take time from our hectic schedules to find out exactly what the cause of the problem is, and try to fix it. Even our cars are checked and repairs made on the recommendations of machines, since fewer and fewer PEOPLE actually know how to make automotive mechanical repairs, and if it's something major, the usual recommendation is to get rid of the car, and buy a new one. We stick our own kids in daycare and later want them in school from sunup to sundown, so those who are parents don't have to deal with them, and when family members get old, we stick them in nursing homes and forget about them. If it's broken, or difficult, or outdated, or the least bit of trouble, it's disposable, and if it's CHEAP, it's REALLY disposable, since you didn't even have to put out too much disposable income to acquire it in the first place.

This attitude is very pervasive in our society, and it's at the root of much of the "pet overpopulation" claims. If the dog pees on the floor, it's easier to take the dog to the shelter than to try and housebreak it. Nine times out of ten, the person who did so will simply get ANOTHER dog to replace that one with, hoping that this new dog will be a New & Improved model that won't pee on floors. It's not a matter of "the dog didn't have a home". There ARE enough homes, just not enough PEOPLE willing to put out any effort or expense or time to handle negative situations. Snakes, especially cheap ones like Ball Pythons, which I've seen sell for as little as five dollars each at reptile shows, are often thought of as a cheap, less time-consuming alternative to a dog or cat, and when the new owner finds out that feeder rodents cost money, too, just like cat or dog food, and the snake needs heat lighting that takes electricity to run, the snake becomes another disposable item.

Another part of the problem is that people today have unrealistic concepts of how animals should behave and what animals should know. When I worked as a volunteer at a local animal shelter, people would bring in cats and dog to dispose of because they were doing things that were perfectly NORMAL for cats and dogs to do, but to the people, those things were simply not acceptable! Hollywood and the Animal Rights movement have promulgated the notion in the public mind-set that animals are just little people with four legs, or in the case of snakes, none at all. Therefore, animals SHOULD act like US-they should make the same moral decisions and have the same concepts of right vs. wrong that WE do, and when they fail, inevitably, to live up to that, people assume that they are "broken" or abnormal, and therefore must be disposed of. Hollywood tells us that snakes are clever, diabolically so, that they are ferocious, fast predators who actually THINK about their prey. Someone who wants to impress others with his OWN cunning, courage and toughness would consider a snake, because surely if you can control something like that, you must be a force to be reckoned with, right? So, that person gets a cheap snake, a Ball Python, and when the thing spends 99% of its time just sitting under a newspaper, wads itself up in a ball out of fear when picked up, but still poops, obviously that snake is a defective one, so the best thing to do is get rid of it and get something a bit bigger and badder. We see this same mentality played out anytime there is a movie or popular tv series starring a particular kind of dog-people assume that if they get such a dog, it will act just like the one in the movie, failing to take into account the training that went into that dog(or dogs, since most movies actually have several playing one role), or that nowadays, it might not even be a REAL dog, but a CGI one. When human expectations for animals are too high and unrealistic, the animals will inevitably pay a heavy price.

pitbulllady

 

[jonnysebachi]

well said pitbullady

 

[sachin]

In the past 2 months.. I have rescued 6... yes 6 ball pythons from people in the surrounding areas.

The latest, makes me the madest.
This 2 yr old ball python is not much bigger than a 6 month old BP.
He was kept in a 30 gallon breeder, with one hide. No decent substrate , 2 huge water bowls, and a few pieces of drift wood.
Instead of looking online for information she kept going to the local pet stores.
Who of course gave her conflicting information:wall:

When he was sold, they didn't make sure he was feeding well, He was probably a new born shipped straight from the captive hatch facility.
He has never had the right humidity, he had twoo YES TWO heat lamps on the screen .
Luckily I was the first to email her, and follow up. So I got him and all his stuff.
Last sunday I drove some 60 miles to get one..
The four I got in Dec/Nov, 2 were from a young couple with a baby on the way, and a near 1 yr old.
This one came from a mom expecting her first. The one last sunday was pregnant, AND had 2 kids.. And the other 2 came from a beleagured grandma who had to take care of grandkids, and work 2 jobs.

Every single one of them is smaller than they should be except one who is about the right size for his age. The smaller one that came with him, was housed with him...
They don't do well together...
Sigh.. I wonder what next week will bring.
I will get pics up when I get home.

Carol

Hi i live in irving texas and my friend has a ball python and her mother is making her get rid of him and no one is buying him, and she just wants him to end up in a good home she's not asking for much but if you could take him or you know someone who would please email me at sachinpatel1865@gmail.com

 

[Ratmosphere]

This makes me sad. If you can't take care of a pet don't buy one to begin with!

 

[darkness975]

The original post is from 2008 but maybe someone will see it and hopefully help the poor snake.

I would if I could