Ball Python Care Guide

• African – Ball pythons are native to Africa, where they primarily solitary lives in burrows, coming out to eat and/or breed.
• Nocturnal – Like many reptiles, ball pythons are typically awake and active at night, sleeping more often than not during the day.
• Constrictors – Ball pythons are not venomous, nor do they have fangs like many species of snakes. Instead, they have small rows of teeth that they use to hold onto their prey while they coil their body around it & squeeze.
• Egg-Layers – Female ball pythons produce and lay eggs, rather than giving birth to live babies like mammals, in groups (clutches) of 2 to 20, depending on the size of the female.
• Adults by the Numbers:
  • Length: 4 1/2 – 5 feet
  • Weight: 8-12 lbs
  • Lifespan: 30+ years

While every animal has its own personality and temperament, these normally docile animals tend to strike only as a reaction to a perceived threat, behaving defensively rather than aggressively. In fact, the typical behavior of a startled ball python is to protect its head & upper body, by coiling itself into a tight ball, which is how their species got its common name.

When keeping ball pythons in captivity, the temperature, humidity, size and contents of their enclosure are very important. Some of these aspects are required, while others can be very subjective and flexible. In the end, all husbandry decisions should be based on the needs and behavior of your individual animal.

• Enclosure Type – We house our breeding collection in a rack system, use plastic tote setups for animals that are new to our home, and also have fully bioactive glass vivariums for a couple animals we like to show off in other areas of the house. What we’ve noticed is that if they are well cared for, with close attention paid to their need for humidity and enrichment, the type of enclosure is really a choice that you can make and change over time.
• Enclosure Size – A good rule of thumb to follow is that the length of your snake should not be larger than two sides of a rectangular enclosure. When your animal reaches that point, you should consider increasing their enclosure size. However, the behavior of your animal should be the real test, so if you move them to a larger enclosure and they stay balled up in one corner, stop eating, or become very defensive, you may need to rethink the decision or at least add additional enrichment/hides to take up some of the additional space until they feel more comfortable.
• Temperature – Ball python enclosures should be set up with a heat source on one end only. The cool side of the enclosure will stay close to room temperature and the warm side should be thermostat-controlled and heated to around 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This allows your animal to regulate their body temperature by moving around the enclosure.
• Humidity – Based on the humidity in their native environments, it’s best to keep your enclosure’s humidity between 70-90%. Generally, this is achieved by using damp substrate and keeping a water dish in the enclosure. These high levels of humidity not only aid in the process of shedding their skin, but low humidity levels have also been linked with respiratory and other health issues.

In the wild, ball pythons eat a variety of rodents, birds and other small animals, whatever happens to be available to them. As pets, buying feeder rodents from respectable breeders will help insure your food items are free of parasites and other health concerns for your snake. We feed our most of our collection frozen/thawed rats, because they tend to be safer for the snake, but we do have some animals that will only eat live feeders.

The chart below is a guideline for meals, compiled from best practices and our own experience. Most of our animals follow pretty closely to this schedule. We have a few animals who prefer to stay on smaller food items and eat more often even after they reach the next age/weight milestone. We also have a few animals that swing to the other extreme and will eat whatever/whenever something is offered.

Ball pythons sometimes go on food strikes. Most food strikes don’t last very long and have to do with normal shedding timelines, hormonal changes based on maturity, or your animal might just be upset about your food choices or other husbandry issues.

Do not panic. Keep track of their weight, husbandry, and behavior. You can try switching up their food type, size, live vs. frozen, etc., though that may also cause them stress and lengthen the strike, instead of solving it.

However, if your animal is still under a year old, their overall weight drops more than 10-15%, or their feces gets runny or discolored in conjunction with a food strike… a vet visit may be in order just to be safe.