Cypress Mulch...

[jathoma]

I just put mulch in my ball's cage as he is getting ready to shed and I wanted to bump up the humidity a bit...

Problem is, he won't even touch the stuff...he's staying off of the bottom of the cage and avioding contact like it's acid or something.

What (besides the obvious thing - removing it) should I do to get him assimilated to the mulch?

:confused:

[tHeGiNo]

I'm going to go out of limb here and guess that maybe it is too cold? Try warming it up a bit possibly... Also, you might want to trim the mulch to only in the hides, this will be effective enough.

[honduranfreekk]

what are your temps at high and lows??? are you using a UTH on dimer?

[jathoma]

I'm in the process of trying to put some money together to upgrade his set up (his tank is too small for him and his hide is just a half log)....

Anyway, the mulch temp is not cold (not even cool). I've finally got him into his hide, where he wanted to be, but only after laying a piece of turf over the mulch...

It just seems strange that he'll have none of this mulch!

Any other advice?

I'm looking really for a custom enclosure, but I don't have the skills to build it myself...(HINT, HINT). I don't want to spend a ton of money, but I want something that he'll be comfortable in and that's aesthetically pleasing... :D

[jathoma]

Originally posted by honduranfreekk
what are your temps at high and lows??? are you using a UTH on dimer?

To be quite honest, I really haven't spent a lot of time worrying about the temps (or humidity, until his last shed came in pieces). He's active, eats at every meal, not skittish at all when held (by myself or any of my 6 kids), so I've kept things going along as they have...

I use a UTH, but no dimmer. I also have a clamp light above with a 100W bulb. Water dish on the other side of the tank (10gal...I know, this is WAY too small him, hence the 'looking to upgrade' comments). I was alternating between turf and towel for substrate, which he didn't appear to mind in the least.

[snakehunter]

weird, my bp is the same way about sphagnum moss, she wont touch it. to up the humidity for shed i get a wet towel, and put it over the screen of the cage, put a wet hand towel under her hide, to make it humid, mist every now and then, and soak my snake for about 20 min every day until shed.

i know it seems like much, but her sheds are perfect, and they just slide right off!

hope i helped
-Jacob

[honduranfreekk]

That maybe your first problem if you use a UTH you must have a dimmer as they can get wayyy 2 hot and burn the snake temp,s are very important I keep mine at 83 amb and 93 hot side now some do it different just my 2 cents

[Jeff_Favelle]

To be quite honest, I really haven't spent a lot of time worrying about the temps (or humidity, until his last shed came in pieces).

Man, you're just asking for trouble and are being unnecessarily cruel to your pet snake. I feel bad for your Ball Python.

[jathoma]

Well, I was being honest....as I mentioned, I have the UTH on one side of the tank (where his hide is) and water dish on the other....I'm going to say the ambient temp is probably around low to mid 80's....warmer of course above where the UTH is.

You can call me cruel, but my ball don't seem to show any signs of stress (he doesn't mind being held, eats regularly and is active as any other ball I've read about here). This was the first change I've made to his cage (aside from cleaning, of course - don't want you to think I totally disregard him) since I brought him home, and I was simply asking for advice.

Jeff, I know you're a highly respected member here, and I appreciate your concern, but "feeling bad" for my ball comes off pretty patronizing to the novice snake handler, especially coming from one as knowledgable as you are ( and I mean that in the literal sense, not sarcastically).

[Jeff_Favelle]

he doesn't mind being held, eats regularly and is active as any other ball I've read about here

I'm not trying to flame or patronize you, but those are things that they do when they are half-dead. They are NOT markers of a snake that is thriving in captivity. Don't get em wrong, healthy snakes do those things, its just not a definite sign of overall health. I hope people don't use them as such.

Its not that I have a vested interest in your snake. Its just that by you saying "I have never measured the temperature and my snake is perfect" you are setting a bad precident for new-bees that take everything they read about snakes on the Net as gospel. You can't blame them, they are completely unformatted in their heads about snakes. All new information is ingested and stored, because there is no other information there. That's why we have to watch what we say. I don't measure temps in my cages either? I know that my ambient in my snake room is 82F and the heat tape running down the back is 98-105F. This makes the hot spots 92F and the cold end 82-84F (during the day). I don't measure it anymore. Its all set up to be that way. I check it from time to time and when I switch to winter cycling and then back. But the point is, I KNOW what it is, even though I don't check.

[jathoma]

Well, I will say, he looks way too healthy to be half-dead, but again, I appreciate your concern...

At this point, I'm still learning along side all of the other newbies that peruse the forums here....I want my ball to be as healthy as possible. This is the main reason I spend so much time reading through the posts on these boards.

I would never push the opinion of 'oh, don't worry about your snakes temps as long as it's doing what you think it should'. This is not my style. I gladly accept any and all comments as to "my" handling of my snake. Again, I am new to this world, and will learn more about it every day.

[Jeff_Favelle]

We are all still learning man! For sure. I mean, up until a few years ago, i kept all my BP's warm and dry. Man, I had no idea they sould take so much humidity. And it makes sense. They are fossorial (for lack of a better term) in nature. Warm, humid burrows to escape the African heat. They seem built for it. Maybe its why they need to wedge themselves (thigmorphsim) into tight spaces? All I know is that we are ALL learning better ways to keep them. Everyday. There is no finite system to keeping these things. Not yet anyways.