Hey Everyone...own 3 reps

[jezeuner]

How's everyone doing? My name is Justin and I'm from NJ. I owned a Black Rat Snake for about 12years from 4th or 5th grade to the first year or 2 in college. He was a cool snake. That was about 6 or 7 years ago. So last year I figured it was time for a new species so I bought a Ball Python(Gizmo) as a baby. He's almost a year and a half now. A little boring, definetly not nearly as active as the Rat Snake but hes much cleaner! He is kept in a spacious 75gallon with news paper as a substrate. Easy to keep clean! He recently moved up in mouse size and is eating an adult mouse once a week.
Me and my fiance bought a house a month ago and she wanted a Bearded Dragon. So we decided to make the 3rd spare room our Reptile/Office room. So we bought a Beardie(Henry) that was about 3months old and is about 5months old now. Henry is my first lizard, I'm more of a snake guy but he's interesting. Easy to keep also. He is also kept in a 75 gallon, green carpet as the substrate. Fed 8-10 crickets powdered in calcium every morning in which he knows he's getting when we take the top off. Kahl- a type of green lettuce is also left in his food dish, fresh each day. Every few days he gets some baby food- squash, carrots etc. some type of vegetable.

Well, I still wasn't satisfied and for some reason I have always wanted a Corn Snake. So i then went and bought a Baby Snow Corn(Arnie). He's doing very well. He is kept in a 15gallon for now. I'll eventually put him in a 30 or 40 gallon. I feed him a thawed pinkie every 4days. His substrate is soft papertowels which works great, easy to clean.

If anyone has any questions I would be glad to answer them. I am still learning so I know I will be on this site asking questions. later

[siz]

Hey, welcome! Reptiles are addicting, aren't they?? Just a quick note about your dragon; If you mean you are feeding him 'kale' (you said 'kahl') it's not great, especially as a staple food. Also, ditch the babyfood. It's no good for any reptile. I'll include the best food list for dragons out there :)
Exclusive Dragons - Bearded Dragon Nutritional Content Information & Chart (http://www.exclusivedragons.com/CareInfoLibrary/Nutritional_Content.html)
from this care library, probably one of the most throrough care sheets I've seen:
Exclusive Dragons - Bearded Dragon Care Information Library! (http://www.exclusivedragons.com/CareInfoLibrary/Care_Info_Library.html)
He will love his 75g when he's all grown up!
Is your BP eating well? 75g is a little big. If he's eating and you have several hides and a good temperature gradient should be fine. Lots of balls are known to stop eating or eat very poorly in larger tanks. They like to feel safe and secure. LOL yeah they can be a bit boring compared to dinurals. If you can, I recommend switching your BP on to FT rats. Mice don't get big enough to feed just one to your BP and it makes more sense to feed one prey item instead of two or three, right?
Anyways, welcome to ssnakess!! There are lots of really knowledgeable people here who would be happy to answer any questions you can think of! :D
PS. post pics ;)

[Will0W783]

Welcome to the forum! Lol- I bought a ball python three years ago thinking he'd be my only snake, but I soon wanted more. They are addictive aren't they? Anyway, I'd definitely take Siz's advice and move the BP to a smaller cage. Bigger is not better with them! Mine is a 4.5 foot adult and he's much happier and eats more regularly in the 30-gal breeder tank than he ever did in the 55-gal I used to have him in. Good luck with all your herps- post some pics!

[jonny666]

Wlcome to the forum. I agree with the size for your tank. As long as it is doing well that is great but if anything changes with eating, you might want to go down in the size housing you use.

[jezeuner]

thank you for the replies. My Ball seems to be doing fine. I have a cool side and warm side of course in the tank. A couple hiding spots. He doesn't have any problem eating or shedding so I'm assuming he's doing just fine. I took pics of the tanks and reps on the camera, just not sure how to put them up yet.

I will definitely show my fiance the care chart for the Beardie. We bought a book on Beardies and it specifically not to feed iceberg lettuce but kale. It also said in the book to offer the Beardie veggies and fruit sometimes so she decided to use baby food and Henry loves it. I guess not anymore..poor guy. lol There will always be people who disagree but I've never owned a Beardie and I'm still learning so I'll go with your recommendation SIZ. thanks later

[Chu'Wuti]

I'll add my voice to Jess's regarding moving your BP up to F/T rats--he should probably be eating twice the amount you're feeding him per week, even as a male. An adult mouse, unless they are jumbo-sized, is only about 25-30 gm. My snake is about six months younger than yours and, from the way it sounds, eating quite a bit more.

Do you have a good scales? You can weigh your snake to determine how much to feed it--it should be eating about 10% of its body weight every 7-10 days. Also, a BP shouldn't be slender like a corn--it should be a heavy-bodied looking snake.

I'm not a Beardie person, so can't speak specifically to Beardies. However, I recently met a world-renowned collector and breeder of geckos, and he also disagreed with feeding them baby food. He says it has had too many nutrients processed out of it; often the skin, containing vital nutrients, is removed completely. It may interfere with proper digestion and elimination as well. Soft fruits, yes, but if you think about what eating highly processed foods does to us humans, you'll understand why your Beardie needs more than baby puree.

Good luck with them all! Post pics--we love to see pics!

[jezeuner]

I bought my BP feb. of 2008 as a baby. He is much thicker than my Corn and is getting bigger. But the Adult mice do seem much bigger than the juvenile (hoppers?)mice i was feeding him. The adult mice make heck of a mess when Gizmo squeezes them. Also, doesn't it take about 3yrs for the BP's to get full size? All of his sheds were in pieces except for his last shed which was a perfect full shed! I'm assuming with a full shed, it means he is doing well. I'm not sure if he is a male or female, so I assumed he is a male and named him as such. Thanks for info/advice. I don't take offense to advice so please don't hesitate to tell me what you think. later
justin

[jezeuner]

Gizmo(BP) is about 22-23inches. In response to your response about the baby food for the Beardie, he is offered about a teaspoon worth every other day and his feces is solid. I'm not arguing, but baby food can't be too bad if it's fed to babys. But I know you can't compare Baby humans to beardies, lol. He does seem to like it. He is offered diffrent kinds.
I'm still trying to figure out how to get pics on here. My computer isn't very new.

[siz]

Baby food for humans is used mostly to get babies used to more solid food. As you said, dragons aren't babies lol. Also, you shouldn't feed them much fruit as it equals runny poops. Runny beardie poop SUCKS, let me tell you haha.
To get pics on, go to Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket (http://www.photobucket.com) and you can upload pics, the you take the image tag under your picture and you can post it directly to the forum. Use the tag that says "[ IMG ] [ /IMG ]" spaces were added to prevent the img code wokring.