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MEDEA'S Things To Buy For Your Ball Python
Here I will tell you some good things to buy for your snake; things for inside the terrarium and things like vitamins for your snake. I will also give picture links to some good online reptile sport
Let's start off as if you just bought the snake and you are going to print this out and go off to the pet store or go to the online stores.
The first thing you need, like I said earlier is a proper sized terrarium. For those who don't know what a terrarium is, it is an aquairium setup for "land dwellers". For a hatchling ball a good size is a 10 gallon. For something a little older you need a 20 gallon. A full grown Ball can live in a 20 gallon for the rest of its life, I dont know how much it would like though that is a little small and is not my recomended size. I am going to buy a 40 gallon when Medea is full grown, just so she has some room. I recomend that.
After you buy the terrarium which should cost nomore than 20 bucks for 10 gallon, nomore than 35 bucks for a 30 gallon, and nomore than 50 bucks for a 40 gallon, (I maybe wrong on the prices :) ) You have to buy things for inside it.
Substrate is needed. Cheap option is newspaper, there other things like Reptile Carpet, Repti-Bark, Coconut Bark, (no ceder!!) or sand, since pythons aren't desert creatures there is no need for them to crawl on sand and it will be uncomfortable for them. Or you can buy reptile bedding. I find the most sanitary to be Reptile Carpet or newspaper.
The next is a heat lamp or hood lamp. With heat bulbs in the sockets. If you have a 10 gallon terrarium with a hood light, I suggest to get (1) Day-Glo heat bulb, (2) Regular incadesent (non heat bulbs) and (1) Night Glo Heat Bulb. Use the one day-glo and one [white or green] incadesent for daylight hours. At night put on the night-glo bulb and a [blue or red] incadeset in the other socket. You dont want to use to heat bulbs to heat a 10 gallon at the same time it will get to hot. If you have a 20 gallon you can buy (2) day-glo heat bulbs and (2) night-glo bulbs. In the day use the 2 day-glos but check the temp to make sure and if it gets over 85 for the whole day you might want to resort to using the one incadesent and one heat bulb, same thing at night watch the temp if it goes over 80 degrees take it out and follow instructions for 10 gallon. For the bigger terrariums (30, 40, and larger) you will need the basking lamp that is higher powered than the other lights I talked about for the 10 and 20 gallon.
Another important one is a heat pad or a heat rock wrapped in a sock or wash cloth to keep for burning the snake. These items are used to heat just that close area to 90 or a little bit higher and that area will be used to help the snake digest its food. I like to put a hide box on top of the area where the heat pad is or put the heat rock wrapped in a sock inside the box so the snake doesn't have to choose between getting warm or coming out the open and getting stressed(LESS STREES IS THE BEST)
Hiding areas, these important to the dispostion and health of your good scaly friend. Like I said I like to keep one with the heat. But also i like to also keep one where the temps are around 80-85 and to keep one where the temp is around 75-80. This way the snake is able to really choose the temperature it wants to be at, because it knows better than we do of how warm it has to be. A ceramic item works well because it also helps when the snake is shedding.
Exercise, keep a branch inside so it can climp around and get off the ground this will also help the stress level of your snake, another good idea is drape some fake flora over the branch so she can hide up there.
A water bowl this is very important if you forget this one the snake will be mean and maybe die. All animals need water. Even though snakes dont drink too much (Mine does though) they still need it and it helps with the humidity levels, which is something they need.
A nice screen lid that locks on the aquairium, escape-proof. With this the humidity won't get out of control and you can keep it where it has to be. It also will help to get fresh air into the snakes home. I don't think anyone wants be breathing bathroom air for 1 month.
Thermometers, make sure you buy 2 of them and dont try and guess the temperature, if you can go out and afford an at least 40 dollar snake you can afford a pair of thermometers for 7 bucks for the pair.
The things I have described are what is needed to have a healthy happy animal, if you want to spend more you can buy theromostats that will keep the heat rocks exact at temperature and misters that give the exact amount of humidity, but I don't have any of those. My snake is the happiest snake I ever saw, so it must be right.
Now its time to get into the products used for cleaning and for keeping your snake at optimal health.
The first is 1 bottle of anti-bactieral sparys for cleaning the terrarium. I like to use WIPEOUT by ZOOMED, it comes as Wipeout 1 and Wipeout 2 buy both one is for terrarium furniture and the other is for the terrarium.
It is a good idea to give vitamins to your snake, there is a couple ways one is you can use the powder which you put on food. Some snakes dont like the way the powder tastes and feels in their mouth and won't eat the food with it. The other is a spray, it lacks some minerals than the powder such as calcium and phospherous. The names of these REPTICAL by TETRA(powder) the other is Vita-Spray by FOUR PAWS, this contains electrlytes, prevents drying of skin and provides natures vitamins. If the snake will eat with the powder then use both of these products it will help.
Lastly, there is a product I used with my wild-caught garter snakes while I was domesticating them. It is called STIMULAP by TETRA, this is a concentrated vitamin preparation that stimulates reptiles to eat. This is good alternative to use if the snake won't eat (for a long time over a few months) instead paying for a herpetologist to force feed it. There is a downside though in my experience it caused the snakes to strike a little more often, at least in the garter species. But if you are going to try force feeding you may want to try this first it will save your snake the stress of being force fed.