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Ball pythons are an African snake that have been one of the most popular pet store pythons ever.  They don't grow large, they are tame, and they are beautiful animals.  During the last decade there has been quite an explosion in color varieties that breeders are working with.

If you are ever in the market for a ball python - or any snake for that matter - try buying a captive born animal.  So many ball pythons are exported from Africa every year that there is a real danger of these neat guys becoming extinct.  They aren't very prolific reproduction animals like other snakes are so their status in the wild is fragile.

I have owned several ball pythons but right now I just own a female.  She's just your typical, "normal" ball, and is pictured over the map of Africa above.  She came from a local pet store and has been a very enjoyable animal to have.  She is one of the few snakes that I have that I have actually seen my wife willingly pick up! 

No one can discuss ball pythons without discussing feeding problems.  When I first got my female she gave me some troubles eating.  For some time she wouldn't eat anything.  It probably lasted about 3 months.  Then she would only eat live mice after that.  They had to be put right at the front door of her hide box.  (Picky, picky...)  Then she went off food again.  I got her back when I started feeding her rats - dead rats.  She is normally coiled up and so the dead rat had to be placed right in the middle of her coils.  It couldn't be left somewhere else in the cage or she would never find it.

This went on for about a year until she got to the point where she would actually come looking for dead food.  She has grown well ever since.

I recently owned a male that was given to me during the fall of 2000.  I was told that he hadn't eaten for a year.  So I put him in a clean, warm cage and gave him some fresh water.  Then after a week I put a live, adult mouse in there thinking that the living mouse might stimulate his feeding response.  He ate it - savagely!  So I gave him another.  He ate that one too.  He ate all four adult mice that I had that night and was never a problem feeder after that.

I would say that the lesson to learn about feeding ball pythons is to try out all sorts of things.  Try feeding them at different times of the day.  Try feeding them live and dead prey.  Try different sizes of mice, rats, hamsters, gerbils - anything!  When I've had green tree pythons before one of them would only eat white mice.  Who knows?  Try different colors of prey.  And keep ball pythons very warm.  Mine seem to like 80 degrees at night and 85-90 during the day.

This is my female ball python pretending to be gravid (pregnant).  I didn't think she bred with the male but I got her a nest box just in case.

• "The Ball Python Manual" by Philippe de Vosjoli is a great reference and you can pick it up for about $9.00 at most pet stores.  Or get it online from a place like Amazon.com.
• http://www.kingsnake.com/ballpythonguide/index.html - This is a very good website with lots of suggestions for feeding ball pythons as well as other information.
• http://www.ballpython.com/ - This is Don and Colette Sutherland's website.  This is a good place to go in order to see most, if not all, of the different varieties of ball pythons.
• http://www.anapsid.org/ball.html - Melissa Kaplan has a good article on them and she has another (http://www.anapsid.org/ballfeed.html) that specifically addresses feeding problems.

Unless otherwise credited, all photographs and text are my property and may not be used without my permission.  World maps courtesy of The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.  I don't claim responsibility for the content of any of the websites that I link to.