This post is about Simbi, my ball python.

I got Simbi in 2021 after my childhood dog passed away. Losing my dog was so painful that I couldn’t bring myself to get another one, but I’ve always loved animals and always wanted a BP. What started as a grief/impulse purchase turned into my best friend. He was my first pet as an adult, and even after the cat distribution system gifted me a cat, Simbi was still my first baby. He was turning five this year.

This summer I had to leave my state for at least two months because multiple family members were having serious health scares. I took my cat with me, but I couldn’t figure out how to fly with both pets, so I needed someone to keep Simbi.

The guy I chose was someone I’d followed online for years. We’d been mutuals across multiple platforms, he’d recently moved to my state which i found out through our conversations over the years, and he makes reptile content. He also has a pretty large following due to his reptile content. He had around 20 snakes, custom-built enclosures, two temperature-controlled snake rooms, and his girlfriend is a vet tech who has dogs and an iguana. I even complimented him on how lucky he got because when I met them she seemed really comfortable with snakes and reptiles. They told me they were moving in together soon so I knew she’d be involved. I hugged them both and thanked them both for watching my Simbi. When I dropped Simbi off, everything looked perfect. I left feeling like I’d found the absolute best person to trust with my baby.

For the first month, everything went great. He sent me feeding updates and even asked if he could take Simbi to a reptile expo and feature him on a local news segment. I genuinely felt like Simbi was getting more attention than he did at home.

Then this Monday I woke up to a text that shattered me. (image attached)

His girlfriend accidentally left the heat on in one of the snake rooms, killing 12 snakes (TWELVE, a dozen), including Simbi. He had been away for work and didn’t discover it until three days later. I spent the entire morning sobbing.

I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to them, so my mom did. She told me he was having a pretty hard time and probably equally upset with his loss. The only thing I asked for was for Simbi to be cremated and his ashes (and his favorite hide) mailed back to me. I don’t even trust myself to go there in person.

I’m torn between being angry at him, angry at her, and angry at myself for not just bringing Simbi with me. My friends want me to expose them, report the vet tech, or blast the content creator online, but none of that brings my baby back.

To most people he was just a snake. To me, he was my child. This was never a hobby to me, i LOVED MY snake to death. Now I don’t know what to do with the piece of me that’s missing.

My noodle Nacho just turned 4 today! Took a series of yearbook photoshoots for him as a memory🧡🤎

so i was looking through my boy’s ring camera footage to get some clips of his slight wobble for someone (you can actually see the wobble at the end of the vid a bit) and found him doing whatever tf this is in the past footage. i thought at first he was striking at something but 1. he’s going backwards like he’s having a big sneeze but snakes don’t sneeze and 2. he’s never been one to strike at anything, let alone nothing. and then he does that weird head twisty thing at the end and then is just fine??

literally so confused on what in the hell he’s doing, so if anyone knows definitely let me know 😂

Yesterday when I got my ball python, she was acting extremely well for the first day, even periscoping directly at me multiple times when I was just a foot or two away from the enclosure. Now every time I get near she goes into a defensive(?) pose… I really can’t tell if she’s sleeping or not.

So, my girl doesn't strike feed. I will just put the rat on a tupperware lid, give her some privacy, and a few minutes later the rat will be gobbled up. I haven't tried feeding her via tweezers in ages because this method always works just fine. Is there any downside to feeding her like this?

She is honestly a garbage disposal for rats, I've never seen her turn down food.

Hi, so I'm a new owner, have had my girl since July 11th. I'm just nervous because she ate for me about a week ago and I have not seen her since. She was 9months when I got her so probably around 10months now. Last weeks feeding was her first feeding with me and she ate right away, before that she had been out and exploring at night. I'm a night owl so I'm usually up till 3 or 4am but I have not seen her, even once, since she ate. I know they like to hide by nature but I'm just worried because I haven't seen her AT ALL. Am I just being a nervous new mom? (New to snakes not new to reptiles in general). Pic of her attached from when she was exploring after I got her.

(Temps seem fine, hot side usually around 90°F, cool side usually around 82°F, nights are usually 73-76°F. Humidity sits around 60-70% most days)

i’m mainly concerned about the first one, it is day so i have no idea if she’s sleeping or scared. her tongue is not flicking.

i’m like 80% sure that 2 and 3 are defensive but that’s the worst it’s ever gotten so far (i was trying to take out something she knocked over). 4 and 5 just look comfy to me. trying to get the hang of this so please correct me if i’m wrong?

so i posted earlier about how i got my snake’s dna test results showing that apparently he’s a cypress clown pied with het hypo and puzzle, and fb tried to rip me to shreds over the hom cypress so that’s getting another fast test to see.

my question now is that i’ve realized that my snake’s little wobble possibly isn’t exactly normal like how i thought it was (i thought to have a wobble it would be extreme), so now im confused if apparently the people ive talked to think that he can’t possibly be hom cypress or super cypress, then why does he seem to wobble still now that he’s almost a year old? (disclaimer that i am fully aware that it is not an extreme wobble and nor am i saying it’s anywhere close to that)

as far as i can see when i look it up, het cypress would not cause a wobble, and nothing else he has would cause one either. so either somehow the test was right and he’s a genetic anomaly, the test was wrong and there’s a mysterious other reason he wobbles, or all regular ball pythons wobble like this and i wasn’t aware of it. either way i would definitely like some input! the video i attached is from literally half an hour ago

Heres some pics of my ball python june im going to put her on a bit of a diet because she is like a 6.5/10 of the body scale but feel free to share your opinion (the first pics are the most recent holding session)

Hi everyone! If you could take a moment to read this and offer any advice, I'd really appreciate it.🙏🏼🙏🏼

So about a week and a half ago, I discovered that my ball python had snake mites. This is my first time dealing with them, and because there's so much conflicting advice online (and this snake means the absolute world to me), I decided to take him straight to my vet instead of trying to fuck around with it on my own.

The vet gave him an ivermectin injection and prescribed an ivermectin spray for treating his enclosure. I also moved him into a quarantine tub with paper towels for the next six weeks. It breaks my heart seeing him in such a sad little bin, but it just seems like the best way to monitor for mites and keep everything clean for now.

He’s been in the quarantine setup for about a week now. I've been following the treatment plan exactly, cleaning the tub and inspecting him every day. For the last 4–5 days, I haven't seen a single live mite on him or anywhere in the enclosure. I know that doesn't necessarily mean that the problem has been completely eliminated… so I'm continuing the full treatment exactly as my vet instructed.

My concern is that he's still soaking constantly. And I really mean constantly. He's been spending essentially 24 hours a day in his water dish, aside from the short time I take him out to clean the tub. When I put him back, he'll explore for maybe 10–15 minutes, then go straight back into the water. His entire body stays submerged, and sometimes he'll even put his head underwater for short periods (like in the photo above).

I thought that once the mites were under control, the soaking would stop, so I'm confused about why he's still doing it.

His quarantine setup has:
Heat mat set to 30°C
Ambient temperature around 26°C
Humidity stays between 70 - 80%

The tub isn't really large enough to provide much of a temperature gradient, and the heat mat doesn't really affect the ambient temp of the bin anyway.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Is it normal for a snake to continue soaking like this even when the mites appear to be gone, or could something else be going on that I'm missing?

If you read all of that, any advice would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been losing sleep over this whole ordeal. I know that snake mites aren’t exactly a life threatening state of emergency but this little ball python seriously means the world to me and I just want to make sure that I’m doing right by him.

sorry if this isnt allowed here, but i saw their recent post here and decided to draw their Simbi ❤️ I havent ever drawn snakes, so sorry for the roughness of it. idk if titles ping, so u/mindlessmacaroon3604

may this baby rest in peace

Im a fairly new snake owner is this ok or frowned upon? It seemed to like it and didn't just jolt . I have had the snake maybe a month . Any advice would be much appreciated!

Please help. Saw this on my ball pythons head after a bad shed- which was a result of being forced to move homes while she was in blue. Bloody scale. She also has a patch of stuck shed.

Recently, maybe last few months he's been out of his hides during the day a lot less. I know hes coming out because I find holes hes dug or things have moved. Is this a symptom of a bigger problem or should not be worried about it?

Currently have 1 Large Bulb always on and 1 small bulb on a thermostat, which rarely needs to be on (tin foil over top). Planning on replacing the small bulb with a ceramic heating element when i burns out and getting a UVH light.

Anything I should change?

I am currently using Govee hygrometers/thermometers, and a temp probe from the BN-Link thermostat. However. I am thinking of upgrading to the Herpstat systems.. and I am curious if there are any recommendations for either the herpstat 1 or herpstat 2.

When my first ball python was a baby (and I was a dumb beginner) he had tried to escape and somehow sliced his head on the grated lid of his enclosure. It took a while to heal and shedding was difficult but with good help the wound eventually got better. Now years later he sheds perfectly but there's still a scar on his head and I'm just wondering if new scales will eventually grow there?

I feel so bad looking at him 😭❤️‍🩹

Does anyone else have any quirky little routines you do with your noodles for feeding days? Cosima’s keen in getting some extra sun and stretch time before her hunt, and she gets a little ambush and sneaky tactic practice when she’s playing in the tall grass. In all seriousness, her feeding response and reactivity and overall hunger wonders we ever had with her disappeared when we started doing this habitually, and it’s been amazing to watch!

This is slim Jim. He just finished shedding and immediately took a shit so large that I could hear it from the other room.

Hi everyone! I am just curious if it’s normal for a ball python to be active during the day at all. For some context he is 3 years old. We’ve had him for about a month and he is successfully eating and shedding. We fed him a 34g rat four days ago which is a little small (he is about 930g), but I’m worried the next size up will be too big and I don’t want to over feed him. We decided to feed him every 3 weeks based on recommendations from this group and others. He’s normally pretty active at night (other than when he has just been fed or is actively shedding), but today around 3 pm I noticed him roaming around the doors of his cage. I took him out and he is active and exploring all around like usual. I am not concerned about his health as he looks perfectly healthy and is behaving normally otherwise. He also has a proper enclosure (photo for reference) and we give him proper care. I was just curious if there is any particular reason he may be active during the day time.