New confused snake owner in need of suggestions and help
This is going to be a long post, but I'll just try to explain how I came to this, that I really really badly in need of any advice I can get.
I got a ball python just under a month ago, he's about four years old, supposedly a male, but I'm not really sure about everything I've been told now.
I bought not only him, but a terrarium with kit. I had been preparing for this for quite a while, so I thought everything would be fine. Unfortunately, as I learned from here, a 3x1.5x1 enclosure is quite small to say the least. I was also told that a heat pad would be enough and that he didn't need lighting, except as decoration :')
Anyway, I bought him a lamp that didn't give much heat (Exo Terra Led Day & Night) because I still thought it would be enough. And then found the guides here (thanks to the problems with the vpn which made me unable to do it before).
It hasn't changed much at this point, but I've at least covered some of the holes at the top of the enclosure to keep the humidity up longer. I'm also waiting for new hides (regular and humid) and new water bowl for him.
In the meantime, he has managed to shed and eat once without any problems.
But during this month I have had a lot of questions build up:
- He often throws the substrate away from his current warm hide, apparently preferring to lie on bare glass, which worries me. Right now the substrate is coco chips with sphagnum moss and oak leaves, but maybe I should change it to a mixture of coco chips and fiber? So that it would be more dense. Or is it better to try something else?
- I plan to buy a halogen lamp for him and maybe another heat pad, but leave it on the cold side. Where I live there are sudden temperature changes right now and I don't want it to affect him. I don't plan to remove the current lamp, just place a halogen one next to it and leave the heat pads on at night.
Current setup looks like like this:
What I'm thinking of doing later:
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I don't have that option right now, but I plan to buy a bigger enclosure, the normal 4x2x2 size, but definitely not this year. Also, I'm not sure if I can get it at all, because where I live there are only vertical ones of this size with lot of ventilation, and custom made ones are only a metal box variant with glass doors on one of the sides. My biggest concern with this option is high humidity and the fact that the metal will be covered in paint. So I am trying now to make his current enclosure as good as possible.
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Less important question, how did anyone get their snakes accustomed to holding? He clearly hasn't been held much in these four years, so he's quite skittish. I try not to touch him, and if I have to take him out, I do it with a hook. So far, there's only been a little progress in that he peeks out of his hide when I tap next to the enclosure before changing the water or wetting the substrate.
Also, his name is Baguette :)
Posted Sep 3, 2025, 6:21 PM UTC