Proper Snake-keeping?

[spacecowgirl]

Anyone else on here have snakes? I have a ball python ( 4 and a half to 5 feet long ) for a couple of years, now. He is in our dining room area, and likes to stick his head out and watch our goings-on. The kids take him out every once in awhile and let him roam, but the poor guy seems lonely most of the time. He is slithering across my keyboard as I write this, though, and now around my arm and neck, and it seems he likes the recreation and,... just something different.

We feed him every two weeks, 3 to 4 mice at a time, so he doesn't get hungry...I was just curious if anyone has experience with snakes? And does it matter if you handle them regularly or not....probably not, but he really does seem to be very people friendly. Unfortunately his heat lamp was reallocated to the chicken coop.

 

[Kevin565]

I don't have any snakes but I do think they are very interesting creatures.

 

[LindsayB]

I have a Corn Snake. He's a butter corn, really pretty. We've had him for about 2 years now and I get him out probably about 3 times a week. He just moved up to eating frozen adult mice...before he would eat 2 fuzzies. He lives in a 20 gal tank with a heating pad underneath the bottom on one side, and I've never seen him use it

I would love to have more snakes but we really don't have any room for anymore animals in the house.

 

[pinkfoxfarm]

snakes are naturally solitary so i dont think they nessicarily get "lonely" but i do think they need to be out of their tanks regularly because they would cover a quite a vast teritory naturally...

 

[goofy98]

I had a ball python and planing on geting one some time soon hopefully but he probbly would like you to hold him more and let him wonder a littel bit more but they are fun snakes to have when i had mine he was sssssooooo fun

 

[9Catsz]

I love snakes. I've got around 25 or so ball pythons, 1 pair of striped Sinaloan milksnakes, 5 cornsnakes, 3 Amazon tree boas, a yellow anaconda, 2 Kenyan sand boas, 5 prairie king/Cali king crosses, and 1 prairie kingsnake.

And, no, snakes don't get lonely. As another poster said, they're solitary creatures and in the case of kingsnakes, will eat another snake if given half a chance. In the wild they don't wander long distances. Ball pythons, especially, live in rodent burrows and only leave to find food, water, a mate or to warm up, then they return to their burrow. So don't worry about your snake being lonely, they're not capable of that kind of thoughts/feelings.

All of my snakes are housed separately.

 

[tigerrrrrrrlilly]

x3 he's not lonely - just gets comfy on humans because we are nice and warm

A little exercise time on the human tree is always enjoyable too!

 

[TucsonAZ]

Agreed, he's fine alone, they like being held because you are warm, no other reason. I had 500 snakes at one point, some like Russian rats and my Indigos seem sooooo smart and aware, some like ball pythons (I owned pied ball pythons in 2002 when they were still $13,000!) are normally very mellow, others like Taiwan beauties are super flighty and hate being held, they all have their own vibe but none are attached to you. If you have a healthy, feeding ball python you're lucky, most are wild caught (or the mothers are) and have many health issues in addition to refusing feed.

I would swap him over to rats though.

 

[spacecowgirl]

9Catsz; According to my math that's 44 snakes you have there! Wow! Where do you put them all?

And TucsonAZ; I thought 9Catsz had a lot of snakes, then I read your post! Were you breeding them? I agree that my snake doesn't really get lonely, maybe just a little bored sometimes. But between myself and my two boys I guess he gets enough outside time.

I think I will try the rat idea. He had a rat once that a friend brought over (that her snake didn't want) and I thought he wouldn't eat it as it would be way too big and he had just eaten three mice two days before, but he pounced right on it. He's a great eater. I think he would eat as often as I'd let him but I understand you shouldn't over feed a snake, so I keep it to once every two weeks. He would probably prefer a couple of juicy rats to three or four little mice, though...

 

[9Catsz]

Quote:
I keep them in rack systems. The balls are kept in sweater boxes in a rack system that I made out of melamine shelves. It's 4' wide and 6' tall and holds 12 sweater boxes and 12 containers that are half the size of the sweater boxes. The rest are in another rack I made out of smaller Sterilite containers and smaller melamine shelves and that sits on top of the bigger rack system. The yellow annie is kept in a 6' Neodosha cage.