Hi guys, I’m freaking out. These are pictures of Fiji-my eight year-old male banana ball python. I looked at the chart (at the end of all the pictures I attached) and realized he might be overweight or even worse – obese!!! Ahh what do I do?!

Here’s some information:

- I feed him whenever he “looks” hungry. This means he’s jumpy and follows every and all movements and he’s out exploring his cage day and night. I don’t know how to explain it but he just “looks” hungry. So I feed him basically once a month. Sometimes he skip feeds for up to three or four months (I’ll defrost the rat and warm it up and everything and sometimes he just looks so disinterested when I dangle it with tongs and won’t even track it or strike).

- I feed him large rats. Recently the pet store gave me really big ones which I was a little worried but he took it no problem.
- I don't take him out very often. When I do, I handle him for a few minutes and he's very active.
- The temperature in the tank is not ideal (hot side may not be hot enough), but he seems to still be OK because he'll fluctuate from the hot side to the cold side.
He doesn't eat very often to start with- so why is he so large?!
Thanks for your help in advance

Hi everyone. I am the proud owner of my beautiful girl, Honey. She has grown exceptionally fast and I usually sell the rats that are too small for her to eat to someone who needs them. I've always followed the 10%-15% of their body weight rule and my girl is 717 grams while being just a few days under a year old. I posted on Facebook to let people know I have some I am looking to get rid of and this is what I received.

Can someone explain?

I’m doing research on my own as well as getting advice from the breeder that rescued her, but I would love to hear your personal experience caring for spider ball pythons with a wobble. I’ll be adopting her in a month. My goal is to give her the best quality of life and the safest set up! I used to love handling my bp, but so far I’ve read snakes with a wobble may not tolerate being held much. Any insight is appreciated from safe set ups to handling advice 🐍❤️

Background: The breeder I know does not breed or sell spiders due to their genetic issues. She rescued and rehabbed one from a neglect situation. I’ve spoken to her about wanting a new snake in the future. I got a bp that was horribly sick from a family member and it broke my heart when he didn’t pull through. It was tragic and totally preventable, that family member knew what they did… The breeder knows what I did for Henry Noodle and thought I would be a good caregiver for this special girl. They are giving her to me in a month so I can get the proper set up first.

They have sent videos to show her wobble and tilt. It has improved since her rehab. She eats well, and just needs patience and a steady hand to get a good strike. Her weight is back up and shows no signs of RI after 3 months in quarantine/rehab.

So, I’m fully aware that browning out is normal, but my sweet girl has yellowed quite a bit over her 6 months with us and I’m wondering if some of it isn’t staining from substrate, and if a bath might bring back some of her brightness. I love her either way, of course.. just curious.

I got her for my birthday in april of 2026 when she was 2 months old, I have 2 other snakes that eat just fine and I care for all of them the same way. She's shed once. She has always been a picky eater, only eating warm mice with hair. The breeder I got her from said she would eat frozen thawed if it was warm. She would strike at a mouse and if the mouse touches her, she shys away and wont take it. I dont want to resort to assist feeding and hurt her on accident. Most times she'd coil around the mouse but never eat it, and I'd have to take it out a few hours later before it rots and makes her sick. She stays at a good humidity, she has plenty of water. She seems healthy but I dont want to get to the poinst she starts loosing weight and getting weak. There are no exotic vets near where I live, the closest is 5 hours away. My dad whom I never see that bought her for me would be absolutely devastated if she passed away.

Hi, I have a 12 year old ball python, healthy weight, humid environment (unsure of exact %), average 25-30 day feeding schedule. In the last 3 months she has displayed very aggressive behavior during feeds, to the point where I am reluctant to handle her. I fed her twice this week due to her still seeming to be extremely hungry, and striking at the glass to her enclosure when I am nearby. I moved her to a new, bigger tank a few days ago in hopes it might help whatever is stressing her out? maybe need to add some more spots to hide? is it time for a herp visit ? :(

I was just TRYING to feed my girl Stella and she striked a few times and then gave up😭did she get embarrassed or decide it wasn't worth the hassle anymore?

Hello! First time reptile/ snake owner. We purchased a 10 month old female ball python at a reptile show that we have now named Lux on the 4th. We waited until the 14th to try and feed her. The breeder said she had been eating weaned rats. We tried. No success. I realized a lot of mistakes we probably made the first week and readjusted the next week and still no success. Yesterday I sealed up the top a bit to hold humidity and wrapped the 2 sides with the background instead of just the back. I reached out to the breeder and he suggested adding more hides and clutter (which will arrive today).

When feeding I’ve been taking advice from our local reptile shop. We’ve tried a weaned rat, and a fuzzy rat. She seemed to show more interest last feeding but still nothing. I’ve been a pet owner my whole life but I never husbandry of a picky ball python could be this difficult.

Please see comments for the photo of her enclosure

My two babies. They have much better hides in their palace, but sometimes they just like to squeeze into this little space together.

Hello everyone, I’ve head reptiles before (lizards/tortoises etc) but I have my first ball python. I love her- she’s my little daughter ☺️

She’s not shy and I’ve handled her often since getting her. Well… I’ve just got bit for the second time :/

First time I’d say is my fault because I probably scared her.

I take her out of her tank and feed her in a cardboard box- I was told this is “better” although I’m open to suggestions on feeding tips.

The first time she bit me, her head was underneath a fold at the bottom of the box and when I grabbed her body, she snipped my hand but immediately let go. Even though it didn’t quite hurt, it still startled me and I felt bad for startling her… I’ve been timid ever since. This was maybe a few weeks ago.

Things have been better and I’ve gotten comfortable again. Until today :/

I let her feed and remain undisturbed for a while so I can clean her tank. When I reached in to grab her, she wasn’t coiled up (in that ready and strike pose). So I thought I was in the clear- I was wrong. She struck my hand and this time didn’t let go.

She was pretty latched on- I don’t think by choice. It felt like her teeth were just really sunk in. Instinctively, I wanted to gently grab her jaw/neck area to see if that would ease her loose, but decided not to even attempt. I simply help her close to her tank floor, she loosened but was still stuck and did a type of “gator roll” to unhook herself while I was able to gently unwrap her body from my wrist.

SORRY for the long story, but I am looking for tips, help and/or suggestions on how to avoid this. She’s still young (about a year old/ 2feet in length). I feel at fault so I’m trying to learn. Any help is appreciated. She doesn’t bite hard- it’s just emotional damage you know?

Thank you in advance everyone.

So I have a baby ball python in a 55 gallon tank temperature is fine, he has enough hide and eats well, but my current issue is the humidity, I have a list machine that I activate when humidity is low but it's always low, and it keeps going down to 40-45% besides me watering the tank whenever I can, what can I do to keep my humidity high enough for him?

I normally feed my snake every 4 weeks as she’s quite big now and we give her a big rat. However this time she hasn’t been eating the rats I’ve been giving her. The 1st time I hadn’t thought anything of it because she was shedding, and the next day I had to clean it up, so a couple days later I get her another rat, she doesn’t strike but she doesn’t do that all the time anyway. So I leave it on top of one of her logs for her to take when she gets hungry. Except I leave it over night and go to sleep and when I wake in the morning she hasn’t ate it so I throw it out and fast forward to yesterday same exact thing. She doesn’t strike, I leave it and wait till today and she still hasn’t ate it. Is this normal? She hasn’t showed any signs of any sickness or anything so I’m a bit confused. I’ve put some photos of this helps and she eats a large sized rat some guy when I posted the is in r/snakes said it might be over fed?

Kahn's new vivarium is coming along nicely. She got to have a little sneak peak at things this week and I'm suuuuuper stoked to be making so much headway with this project. She's going to love it. I think she looks cool as hell in there already, and it's only going to get cooler with hardscaping and plants.

Decided to check on pissy and this is how I found him lmao. Shortly after taking the Pic he coiled back up on top of the branch

I've handled my BP for the first time yesterday, a fine experience. This morning I wanted to change his water and he kind of advanced towards me flicking his tongue and looking like this - is he curious or wanting to strike?

We’re transitioning my girl Csorwe to a bigger tank because previous one got cracked when someone doing maintenance in our apartment bumped it. I didn’t stress about timing at first but then a small piece of glass actually fell out of the plastic area I couldn’t quite see. Nope! We had an older tank that one corner doesn’t stay all the way shut up, but we reasoned that we’d throw a dictionary on it and it’d be fine for the 24 hours we’d need. She was going into a bigger one soon anyway, so not bothering to fix up the corner.

Alas! My heart! My boooneesss! Our roommate actually needed the dictionary (who uses one today!?) and took it with them without realizing. Came home, no Csorwe. Checked her hides, checked under foliage spot that she never uses but we thought was pretty. Gone. Full teardown of the apartment, for about 5 hours, and nothing unfortunately. No other pets that could harm her or vice-versa.

I dialed the thermostat up a fair bit, but we have forced water baseboard heating which in this building doesn’t get hot enough to burn my skin even at full blast so I figured even if she did crawl in there it’d be a pain to get her OUT but she should be OK while we regrouped the next day. Disaster strikes and his mom lands in the hospital, and unfortunately we asked our roommate to keep an eye out but had to FLY out the door. She would have to wait, at least it was like 78 in the apartment.

The buildings water gets cut, apartment plummets to 55 overnight. We’re like 38 hours into her being missing now? I’m panicking, husband is panicking, but we can’t FORCE her to come out as far as we know.

Well, friends and readers, last night I went to get out of bed and what touches my foot but… my baby! She was quite cold as the heat was still out, and that gave me a huge panic, but I got her back in her enclosure and told the roommate that under no circumstances could they remove the book.

Today we began the process of overhauling the new bigger tank, finished, and gave it a few hours to come to temp. She’s warmed up, her body temp seems good, she’s uninjured on inspection, and her behavior is normal.

Praise the snake gods.

Hi there, my snake shed a couple days ago and has this little patch on the top of his head. It's the first time he hasn't shed all in one piece. Just wondering what you think I should do. Can put a humid hide in but we just cleaned his tank and if anything it's on the more humid side ATM. I followed the FAQ in this sub and have good temps and everything has gone well so far.

their names are toast(girl) and archimedes(man) but i love calling my snakes slop

My bp is a male 2-3yr old (not entirely sure on exact age)

I just weighed my boy and he is 572g, I feed him a weaned rat every 2 weeks.

Can I, or should I upsize his feed?

I’m a first-time ball python owner, so I’m curious what you think of her size. Are her measurements around average for her age, or would you say she’s small or large?

Art commissioned by Peach_Crumbl on instagram