My first reptile

trailblazer295 · 12-14-14, 04:49 PM

After a few days of setting the cage and getting the heat right I picked up and brought up my male Firefly Ball Python. I've named him Mushu (after the dragon from Mulan) My cat was named Nahla from the lion king by my sister.
Here a few shots of the maiden release and a shot from inside the store. He seemed to enjoy my vests lol He ways in at whopping 266g.

Casp1r · 12-14-14, 06:50 PM

Beautiful snake. You gotta love the ball pythons!

sharthun · 12-14-14, 07:14 PM

Congrats!

BIGT FROM F.B. · 12-14-14, 09:21 PM

Nice starter snake. Before you know it, you'll be investing in all kinds of exotic Morphs in all species!

**EL Ziggy** · 12-14-14, 09:32 PM

Congrats on the new addition. Nice BP.

raidcrasher · 12-15-14, 04:10 PM

Excellent starter...and a pretty one. Congrats.

**millertime89** · 12-15-14, 04:20 PM

I had to look for him for a little bit in that first picture.

Rattlehead · 12-15-14, 04:31 PM

Cute little fella!

trailblazer295 · 12-15-14, 10:02 PM

I'm happy to report he seemed to endure the move pretty well. He was bagged at the store so I held him against me under my vest to shield him from the Canadian winter weather. Drove home with my heat blasting just in case. When I slid him out of the bag he didn't seem to bad. He actually needed encouragement to go into the cage he was starting to go the other way. He was exploring his cage right away and today by late morning was back exploring around. I haven't seen him use his hide yet but instead just curls up in the rear of the cage near the hot spot. I'm taking this a sign he isn't very stressed out. I'll give him a few days before trying to feed. I know he was fed at the store monday or tuesday. He was fed live wean rats. I'm going to try and switch to non live as soon as I can. The few times I've held him at the store he didn't really ball up but instead started exploring the limits of my arms and body, as seen by him climbing up me and along my back to the vest edge. That was all his doing. Seems I picked a bold little guy. I won't try holding him again until the weekend.

trailblazer295 · 12-16-14, 06:20 PM

After talking to the guy at the store of his actions since bringing home. His actions indicated not being stressed. He suggested try a feeding tonight. It's been a week since he was fed at the store so i offered him a mouse. Once he detected the mouse near by he was quick to kill it. The mouse squeaked once. After consuming him he is moving about his cage casually.

AngPanday · 12-19-14, 10:16 PM

Congratulations on your first snake :-)

trailblazer295 · 12-25-14, 10:31 PM

Thanks everyone, I've got the feeling I probably won't stop at one. Due to him being a fairly active BP when he grows up I'll probably look for a larger enclosure with all new stuff and well then i have a empty setup.....

trailblazer295 · 02-03-15, 07:22 PM

Mushu in his new cage, yawning after feeding. He seems to be more active in his new home. I'm hoping that activity levels keeps going as time goes on. It seemed the right thing for him considering his full grown size. He actually has somewhere to move to rather then stay in one spot. It's a 48x24x16 made by herphouses. Lighting is there LED strip. I bought a second LED strip for his old home which will soon house a childrens python.

fishingfool · 02-03-15, 08:05 PM

Congrats on the new bp dude i just had a feeding tonight also two for two. one is also a first eat

mistersprinkles · 02-14-15, 02:34 PM

Congrats on buying a snake. I would urge you not to feed live prey. Apart from the fact that the experience is extremely unpleasant for the live prey, it can be very unpleasant and even dangerous for your snake. When I was a (stupid) kid, I used to (stupidly) feed my snakes live prey because I was under the impression that it was better for them. I stopped after one time when my corn snake grabbed a mouse from the wrong end and the mouse was able to bite the snake. HARD. There was blood and it left a nasty scar. Had to take the snake to the vet. That's where I found out how stupid I was.

I'm not calling you stupid, and baby mice/rats are less dangerous than adults, but you really need to stop doing this, and hope that it's not to late to re-train this snake. What I found worked for switching my guys over to dead prey, was warming the dead rodent up (don't use a microwave! use a hair dryer or other dry source of heat) and then holding it by the tail with tongs and moving it infront of the snake to imitate a live animal. I found this successful. Gradually over time I warmed up and moved the dead rodent less and less until eventually I just put it down in the cage and left it there, and the snakes learned to take it like that. If you just do a cold turkey swap, the snake is unlikely to take the dead prey.

BTW you don't have the snake in that aquarium with one of those mesh/screen tops do you? That's not the right way to keep a ball python.

Another thing- I noticed when I had BPs that they like to curl up in vegetation. They come from grasslands so that makes sense. I got one of those artificial plants for aquariums

Like this but with bigger leaves. Soft plastic not hard

and I laid it down in the tank, and the snake seemed to prefer curling up under the plant more than going in its hide. You might want to give that a shot.