Ball Python enclosure questions.

[Bear Foot Inc]

treated lumber is not a real good idea. unless you totally seal it which if your going to do that you dont need treated anyway. there are alot of chemicals in treated lumber that can cause respiration problems. also soak through the skin if the wood becomes damp. do a little research and you will find alot of info on this.
also have say that heat is very important for digestion. regaurdless of what some want to think. the cooler the snake is kept the longer digestion will take. if they are to cool the last meal can actually start to decay before it is digested. can cause the snake to regurge its meal. or it can pass half digested. which in extreme cases can cause a snake to prolapse. im not saying that you cant keep a ball python at 70 degrees. just saying it puts an extra strain on the snake and can cause other problems. mine after a good meal would almost always curl up under the heat pads and stay for 3 or 4 days. given that i think obviously they prefere to be warm when they are digesting a good meal. after they would usually go back to the cool side of the cage. i think at least they should have an area where they can warm themselves if they want to.

I agree 1000% with that statement. Treated wood has arsenic in it so its a no no for live animals. And heat is the most important part.
~Samuel

 

[Halgeir]

Hey guys.

I guess that when you say "treated wood" you mean wood that's been soaked or covered with some kind of chemicals?
If so - I'm not going to use that anyway, I'm going to use "clapboards" (should be the right word, but not sure) that's not been tampered with.

As you mentioned - heat is important, and I'm going to use a infrared heating bulb to heat up the enclosure. As mentioned a couple of posts above.

 

[Bear Foot Inc]

Sounds good!

 

[Halgeir]

Hey guys and girls.

Thought I'd give a little update.
I've started building the enclosure with the measures 120x50x50 cm.
Havn't gotten that far, but here's a picture.
I've also bought the heatlamp.

When I started:

When I stopped:

There's still lots to do, but it's a start atleast

 

[Bear Foot Inc]

Hey,
That looks very good. I'm sure your BP will love it!
~Samuel

 

[Halgeir]

Hey guys and girls.

Been a while since I last posted, but now I'm almost done with the enclosure. I only miss one ventilation hole and place the lamp through the top.
Here's some pictures of the process.

 

[Halgeir]

Last pictures, almost done with it:

 

[SPJ]

I'll jump in and ad my 2 cents.
A small enclosure works best for babies. Too large and you stress out the animal. I use a rack setup for my BP's. Babies are in 15 qt tubs, sub adults and adult males are in 32 qt tubs and adult females and breeding pairs are in 41 qt tubs.

If using varnish, make sure there is absolutely no smell before placing the snake in the enclosure. Cypress mulch makes a great substrate since it holds heat and humidity well and can be easily spot cleaned.

Put a hide on the hot and cool sides. Keep the water dish on the cool side.
Give it a basking spot of 90-92 degrees with the cool side NO LOWER than 78-80 degrees. Radiant heat panels work great in wood enclosures. Flexwatt works great with plastice enclosures. Make sure you measure the temps with an accurate thermometer and have some type of control on the heating. A rheostat works well but you will have to adjust it based upon the rooms temps. A proportional thermostat is the best choice IMO.

Keep the humidity between 50-60% pre shed and during blue, mist them and raise the humidity to 80%.

Try to get it on frozen thawed food. Cheaper/easier/safer to feed than live. You can also order in bulk and never have to deal with a petstore for feeders again and pay the inflated prices.

Try and buy your BP from a reputable breeder. DO NOT get one at a petstore. Over the next month or so, all of the babies will be streaming in from Africa. These will get sold at just about every petstore in the country. The animals hatch and are packed in bags of 10 before they have their first shed or first meal and crated up onto a plane to the states.

Petstores are not equipped to properly care for these fresh captive hatched babies and neither is a first time keeper.

Get an established animal from a reputable breeder and you will not have any issues. Most of the time a BP and the shipping cost from a breeder is less than what a petstore charges.

Good luck and post any questions you have.

Oh and here are a few of my BP's.

Wild type (normal)

Pastel (co-dominant mutation)

Spider (dominant mutation)

Albino (simple recessive mutation)