Snakes <3 <3 <3 :)

this is my new baby she's 6 weeks old and a spider ball python

Here is a pic of my son and his Ball Python he got for his birthday!! Her name is Lady and I think she is quite possibly the lowest maintenance pet we have ever had lol. We raise mice for her to eat and she has gotten HUGE in the last year! I do not like wild snakes but I'm totally okay with pet snakes, however pet snakes have given me a lot more respect for wild ones, and I don't freak out like I used to!!

mixedUPturk said:

Thats awesome! I love my pet snakes and your right, they are rather low matinence! The mice/rats are alot worse right?! I will post a pic of myself holding our Albino ball tonight

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Omg the mice are stinky and eat like grown men lmao. but it sure is a lot easier to just raise them myself instead of having to run allllll the way into town (a 30 minute drive) and pay about $4 a piece for live ones. Lady eats 2 or 3 a week, and I order 25lbs of mouse food online for less than $30 with shipping, and that lasts me months, so way cheaper in the long run to raise them myself. My dad also has snakes so I give them mice too when I have too many. I change their cages about once a week, or every 2 weeks depending on how many are in each cage, so its not too labor intensive. They stay outside under my carport and i keep fans on them in the summer and lights in the winter and have not lost any to the weather yet. I made some feeders out of hardware cloth that hang on the side of the aquarium and it keeps them from pooping and peeing all over their food and it lasts a lot longer and there is less waste than with a dish. After I got all set up, its a pretty cheap operation.

If i have a mean mouse that is picking on everyone else I feed them to the snake promptly lol. I have also fed some of the younger ones to the chickens when I had entirely too many (sometimes you get 10 babies per mama, sometimes you get like 20.... and sometimes that is way too many haha ).... I know that sounds so wrong, but the chickens really liked it..... They are "feeder" mice, right?!?! Good source of protein?!?! I used to feel so bad feeding them to the snake but it does not bother me anymore lol. I have 2 "special" mice that are on the no kill list because they are handicapped, but the rest are on the menu lol.

If only all animals were as easy and smell free as snakes!!!!

MESOFRUFFEH said:

Lady eats 2 or 3 a week,

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One of the biggest mistakes I made with my snakes was overfeeding. Now, when they're less than a year old, they get fed a size appropriate prey once a week and when they turn 1 year
old, they go to being fed every 2 weeks. All of my snakes currently are over 1 year old.

I have 2 full sized ball pythons, one's 7, one's 6. They get a medium rat every 2 weeks - anywhere from 80 to 140 grams (depending on the source, weight on them can vary quite a bit). One of them eats frozen, the other I want to switch to frozen but he seems adamant about eating live (but I'm still trying to coax him to switch). Paradox weighs around 2200 grams, Charade weighs around 1800.

Have you considered switching to rats? They don't smell anywhere near as bad as mice do and are more tractable IMO.

In addition to my pythons, I have 2 boa constrictors, 6 corn snakes and a Brazilian rainbow boa.

anankae said:

One of the biggest mistakes I made with my snakes was overfeeding. Now, when they're less than a year old, they get fed a size appropriate prey once a week and when they turn 1 year
old, they go to being fed every 2 weeks. All of my snakes currently are over 1 year old.

I have 2 full sized ball pythons, one's 7, one's 6. They get a medium rat every 2 weeks - anywhere from 80 to 140 grams (depending on the source, weight on them can vary quite a bit). One of them eats frozen, the other I want to switch to frozen but he seems adamant about eating live (but I'm still trying to coax him to switch). Paradox weighs around 2200 grams, Charade weighs around 1800.

Have you considered switching to rats? They don't smell anywhere near as bad as mice do and are more tractable IMO.

In addition to my pythons, I have 2 boa constrictors, 6 corn snakes and a Brazilian rainbow boa.

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Actually, I was thinking about gerbils, then rats but that seems like a pain because she will probably outgrow gerbils fast. Kinda why she is still eating mice, and so many at that. She usually eats 2 a week, sometimes every other week, but I will sometimes toss a third in there to see if she will eat it She is around a year old now, she has realllllly grown since we got her. She would definitely have to eat young rats. She is really good about not eating tho. One of the reasons I like to breed my own & feed live, if she doesn't eat it within the first 5 minutes its in the cage with her, it goes back outside until next week, no waste,and I dont have to worry about where to house the mouse or going to buy live ones etc. Lady refuses to eat frozen, or even pre killed. She prefers live. At first that really bothered me, but now its whatever. We have a TON of 10 gallon aquariums. That really is not big enough for rats tho, so I would have to upgrade

I'd like to get into breeding rats for her, but acquiring all of the caging etc needed would be my only hurdle. ( i guess i COULD build me some out of hardware cloth, its not that expensive.) That, and finding a male and female rat. Guess i'd just have to shop different places to see what gender they carried.

MESOFRUFFEH said:

Lady refuses to eat frozen, or even pre killed. She prefers live.

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I know how that goes. I know someone who has remarkable success at getting snakes to switch to frozen but I think her attitude is if they get hungry enough, eventually they'll take a thawed rodent.

Tho I just realized I'm sort of doing that. I've been feeding Charade small rats around 60 grams. It keeps him a little hungry, trying to motivate him to take a thawed. He was the only snake that refused food last winter, although when he came out of his fast, he still wouldn't take a thawed rodent. Maybe I'll hold out on him next spring, see what happens.

Speaking of winter, with the exception of the boas, I tend to go to feeding one a month late November through the end of February/mid-March. Boas go to twice a month so I don't have to work so hard at scheduling who gets fed what day.

Hi, I don't have any snakes right now but really want one. I was thinking corn snake but still not sure. Also I have little finches flying around my room right now so I think the snake would love to eat them, will have to build them a cage and also have a separate cage for the snake.

Does anybody have any tips on snake care?