- I've never been a supporter
of the whole cancel culture thing,
and I'm not even really comfortable with the whole
exposing a creator or exposing someone else video.
It's just not the kind of thing I want to get into,
or cause that sort of controversy.
But at the same time,
I feel like it is somewhat my responsibility
to show you this video.
This is a care guide that was deleted.
It was first made six years ago,
and at some point was removed
after it had gotten over a hundred thousand views.
Also, this is a creator that has a bigger audience now
and is still making videos and stuff
that people might not have known about what was happening.
So I'm a little uncomfortable doing it,
but I got the source file,
and we're gonna jump in.
I'll leave my commentary,
but at the end of of the day,
it's up to you on your opinions
and what you think of 'em.
(drum music)
- Today, we're going everything you need to know
about ball python care.
- Today, we're going everything you need to know
about ball python care.
- So, ball pythons are a really common animal to get,
and they're pretty simple to care for.
Just all around ease of care, not very expensive.
- The pretty simple, the pretty easy,
pretty good to care for.
You should get the ball py- I'm sorry.
If we pause this every few seconds,
we're never gonna make it through this video.
Fun animal to have.
If you would like to read all this out, you can...
Also, I'm sorry, I'm pausing again.
Look at his little tag in his shirt.
Everyone always thought that that was a shirt tag,
it's actually Apple earbuds
wrapped around and taped on the chest
because microphones were too expensive
for this young lad and he had to improvise.
Honestly, audio does not sound that bad.
I'll give the video that.
You can go to goherping.com/ballpythons.
First we'll just quickly overview the supplies we need,
and then we can get started.
Paper towel, a spray bottle, snake tongs.
- Wait, paper towel? What? I'm sorry.
- Some sort of substrate.
We'll get into this later.
- Aspen. Wow. I love aspen chips for ball pythons.
- A reptile hide.
- I love a reptile hide that isn't actually a hide.
It's actually just a half log
where there's, like, no hidden parts for the snake,
so it's actually exposed on both ends.
It's great.
- A reptile hide, a water dish,
some sort of water conditioner.
- Because nobody's on well water.
Well water does not exist.
- Gauges.
- Petco humidity and temperature gauges.
- A heat lamp.
- A Home Depot heat lamp rated for 60 Watts.
- Bulbs.
- Walmart bulbs. Wow. 40 watts.
Oh wait, no, they're 70 watts.
- Accessories.
- Sticks found outside.
- A ball python.
Look, the production quality,
at least there was an attempt.
I don't even, I hardly even attempt,
at least there was an attempt. Okay.
- Of course, the last thing is a tank.
So what I've got right here
is a 20 gallon reptile enclosure.
- 20 gallon, wow.
- In this video, I'm using a top opening glass enclosure,
but you can also use aquariums,
front opening snake enclosures.
- Wait what?
At first glance, I thought that was a bearded dragon.
I was like, what's going on in this enclosure?
We're good. Continue.
- Wooden enclosures...
- What is this?
- Why was this picture selected for a wooden enclosure?
Of every wooden enclosure there is,
it's the one with plastic grass and nothing else.
- And more. Now, ball pythons are...
- Still, pretty good production quality, not bad.
- ...are on the larger side
compared to other beginner snakes.
However, I am gonna be keeping mine
in a 20 gallon for his whole life.
He's currently three years old.
I got him when he was a couple months old,
he was my first reptile.
And some people might say that this is too small
for a ball python's whole life.
- Yes. Some, probably all people
would say that by now.
20 gallons, whole life, this much space, for decades.
Let's hear the reason, I'm open-minded.
Let's hear what we got.
- However, they're very inactive animals.
It's just in their nature.
It's even in their name, ball pythons,
what they do best.
- Don't smirk at me like that.
Haha, it's in their name, ball pythons.
That's why they don't like space.
No, they ball up 'cause when they're scared,
probably of you,
they wanna protect their vital organs and their head.
So they're gonna ball up and be like,
please, for love of God, don't touch me.
What does that have to do with not wanting space?
- ...is ball up.
So they really don't need much space to move around.
They really don't do much.
The only time they move around isn't even while hunting,
they just wait for their food to come by.
The only time you'll see them really moving
is when it's mating season
and when the males are looking for a mate,
but they won't be doing that
in a small enclosure like this,
unless you are breeding them.
So the first thing there is to setting up this tank
is the substrate.
So you have multiple choices.
- So I still remember this product, Lizard Litter.
It molds very fast.
Any water, instant mold, turns black within like a week.
Just literally like, snake goes in its water dish,
a little water splashes, hey,
you pick up the dish a week later?
Black mold.
- I'm gonna be using Forest Floor bedding made by...
- I actually still use Forest Floor.
I think it's a good product.
- ...Zoo Med.
It works really well.
I'm really happy with the look of it and it's easy to use.
You have many other options.
I listed some out on goherping.com/ballpythons,
but there's also maybe aspen bedding,
like Lizard Litter, aspen chips, different types of bark.
Just make sure they're made for reptiles.
- Look, I know this isn't related
and I know I have small arms, but oh my God.
Look at the arms. Look. Look!
There's also a farmer's tan going on.
Look, I don't want this video removed
for harassment and bullying,
but they're so skinny.
If only someone told him,
if someone personal to him was like,
"You are so unhealthily skinny,
can you like eat a hamburger or something?"
This person got comments about it.
And that was the only way,
it was through insider information.
He was like, "I get like 10 comments a day about my arms.
Maybe there is something wrong with my arms."
Maybe bullying people into changing their body
is the right way to do it.
I don't know, I'm just saying.
Worked a little bit for him.
I can't say that. Alright.
- I never recommend sand for any animals.
We can get into that another time.
- We can get into that another time, oh boy.
I'm sure... times got done very many times.
- And your animal will be safest
on substrates made for them.
- Your animal will be safest on substrates made for them.
Yeah, but people that sell sand
is gonna say it's made for them as well, aren't they.
- ...go to are Zoo Med, Exo Terra, and Zilla.
Those are the companies that I always use supplies...
- Look at the camera. Stop looking down.
I think there's another camera below,
and it's just eye contact with the wrong camera.
Zoo Med, Exo Terra, and Zilla, yeah,
I don't really like Zilla.
I think Zilla is kind of a waste of money, honestly.
The other two are fine.
- ...from, they're my go to companies.
So what I'm gonna go ahead and do
is begin just filling this enclosure...
- A trash bag of mulch.
That looks like playground mulch.
That does not look like Forest Floor to me.
It's so light and it's so dry.
It's like kiln dried Forest Floor,
that defeats the whole purpose.
- ... doing this much,
and this will allow about one to two inches of substrate.
- Also, what is going on with the lamp in the back?
And this?
You gotta check your set before recording, dum-dum.
- This looks like just about one inch,
which is gonna be perfect.
It allows a barrier between the heat pad and the snake,
but we haven't talked about the heat pad yet.
We'll get into that later.
- Yeah, first of all, you're getting ahead of yourself.
Second of all, I've been told this:
"Oh, well I have, I have some paper towel,
and it's a barrier between the bottom and the animal."
Well, guess what?
The animal can go under the paper towel,
the animal can move the substrate.
If your only way of regulating
the temperature of your thermostat
is by putting things that also happen to be flammable
on top of the heat source,
don't, no, that doesn't make any sense.
We are three minutes into this.
We still have 10 minutes left.
(sighs)
- It's also enough for when the snake is shedding.
This will be helpful to it,
and it's just all around a good amount.
So one to two inches of whatever safe substrate you choose.
Next, a hide.
You can buy just about any hide.
However, I like these that are...
- I'm like the teacher
when they're showing you a presentation
and they won't move the stupid cursor.
Sorry, I didn't realize my cursor was in it, I apologize.
- ...real parts of logs. They're like a semi part...
- I think these look cool,
even though they're not the most epic hides ever.
Only problem is, I know for a fact, don't ask how,
that this specific log ended up rotting.
Because, well, they're not treated,
which is good that they're not treated,
but they're not gonna last long
as a non like pine or,
hopefully it's not pine, I guess,
but a non... I don't know what kind of wood it is,
whatever kind of wood it is that rots somewhat easily,
even in only slightly humid environments,
it's kind of a pain to keep replacing,
and it's also kind of wasteful.
- ...cleaned out just like this.
This one I believe is made by Zoo Med.
Again, they're a very trustable company,
'cause you know it'll be sanitary
and sterilized safely for your reptiles.
- Simpin' very hard for Zoo Med,
which, I still like Zoo Med,
and I've done videos with products that Zoo Med sent over.
But, simpin' before it was a term.
- Gonna go ahead and put this in on the left side.
You can choose whichever side you want.
You just need a couple things to line up.
This can go right...
- And now we're done. This is the complete setup.
Everything's done. It's good to go.
We're ready. Honestly, at the spot it is here,
it's probably gonna be better than it ends up at the end,
but let's watch and find out.
- Basically the hot side of the ball python's enclosure.
So the best way to do that, firstly, is with a heat pad.
- So basically, what he said is,
the ball python is not allowed to hide on the cool side.
That the hide goes on the hot side because I said so.
The cool side, even though I haven't told you
what a temperature gradient is yet,
you need a temperature gradient.
But, you're going to make it so that the ball python
won't even want to go to the other temperature
because they have only one hiding spot.
- This is for a 10 gallon, and this is a 20 gallon tank.
So I have the 20 gallon one I'll be using,
but just make sure you get the appropriate size.
I won't be sticking this on right now,
but you're gonna wanna put this to one side of the tank.
- Well, prove it. Where's your 20 gallon one?
It doesn't really make sense to me,
I feel like it should be based on the animal's size,
and not the size of the enclosure,
which heat mat you want.
'Cause it's not like heat mats-
I mean, they add a little bit of ambient temperature,
but not a ton, necessarily. I don't know.
I think it's kind of weird how they're labeled and sold.
- ...which allows your ball python to heat up on this
if it needs to.
I keep these on 24 hours a day,
no matter what the season is,
because it's just a really good way
to make sure your animal will not get too cold,
because it can always go and warm up.
- With a thermostat hopefully.
He hasn't mentioned it yet.
Anytime I mention a heat source,
I try to mention a thermostat back to back.
So people don't just watch half the video
and then get a heat mat or a heat lamp even.
It's like a ceramic heater or something.
Maybe it's mentioned later, we'll find out.
- And because it's only one spot,
it can easily and safely move off of the heat
to cool down if it needs to.
All you need to really make sure of
with the hide, is that it's big enough for the animal
to get in and out of easily.
Next, there's water.
This is an Exo Terra water bowl.
They make great water bowls.
I love the heavy ones,
because you don't have to worry about
the animal knocking them over.
- That's true. It's kind of annoying,
like I wish I could just use plastic dishes
'cause I could just throw 'em all in the dishwasher,
but the animals tend to knock 'em over.
- So I'm gonna put this on the opposite side,
and when picking out a water bowl,
you wanna make sure you have one that's not too big
to where the snake can get stuck in it.
Snakes can drown.
They can stay in the water for a long time,
but they can eventually drown.
So if you get some massive bowl for a little baby snake,
there's a slight chance that it could get stuck.
So go with the appropriate size.
You also want it to be big enough
that they can soak in it if they need to.
So this is good for maybe a medium size
or large ball python.
I'm gonna clear out an opening right here.
- That's fair, but there is really no reason
your ball python should be soaking.
In my experience, it's always because
it's either overheating, or it has snake mites,
or it's maybe stuck in shed,
but it shouldn't be soaking.
So sure, it can be big enough for it to soak,
but a ball python doesn't need to soak.
- Then to stick the water bowl and then just fill it.
- Wow, look at how much space is left
for the ball Python to do absolutely nothing.
Because now it's got a solid four inches
in between the bowl and the hide,
and nothing else to do, it looks great.
Not even halfway through.
- ...around with substrate.
So next the actual water.
I don't recommend using just straight tap water,
because it includes multiple chemicals.
Mostly chlorine is what you're worried about with reptiles.
So there's four ways you can avoid this.
- Okay. Well, there is other types of water.
There's well water, there's...
as I'm sure you got lots of comments about,
"Can I use this water?" "Can I use that water?"
There's like a million different waters people ask to use.
Tap water is simply water coming out of a sink.
Where does that come from?
There's all sorts of sources.
Also lots of city water will have chlorine and chloramine,
which you forgot to mention, smarty pants.
But now let's see how you get rid of chlorine.
- The first way, which I don't really recommend,
is going out and just buying distilled water.
Doing this is gonna end up costing you quite a bit,
'cause it's about 80 cents a gallon
and you're gonna go through a lot of gallons.
With my animals, I've gone through
maybe three or four gallons today already.
- Yes. The reason you should not use distilled water
is because it costs 80 cents per gallon,
and not because there's absolutely no natural minerals
in the water, good job young lad.
- So yeah, you can do that.
Do not buy purified, buy distilled.
- Wait what? Wait, why?
- ...because it's just straight water, nothing in it.
- What? What?!
So personally, I've made videos in the past,
and I remember some things I said,
and I cringe about some of the things I said.
I have absolutely no memory of ever saying that.
- The second way is distill it yourself.
You can get jugs, like,
I actually have some of these water jugs
from when I used to buy them.
You can fill this with water
and simply let them sit out for about 24 hours.
That'll let all the chlorine evaporate
and it'll be ready to go.
- I haven't looked in this in a while.
I think chlorine evaporates in about 24 hours,
like a day or so.
I think chloramine slowly releases chlorine,
actually I shouldn't even be saying,
'cause I actually don't remember,
but a day could work for some things,
but not for others necessarily.
It's easier to just use a water conditioner
if you're on chlorine, which it looks like you have,
so let's see if you talk about it.
- You can also boil the water
This is pretty time consuming.
If you do wanna do that,
you can just fill a pot or pan or something with water,
let it heat up and boil on the stove.
Again, this will take a while,
but it is a possible way to do it.
- So I actually did used to boil
all of my water for reptiles.
And I didn't think about how heat works.
Basically, let's say right now
I need to refill all my animal's water dishes.
I don't wanna have to wait, so I boil a bunch of water.
I have all these pots, and I'm like, burning my hands,
and I'm dumping the water into bowls
so I can boil more on the pots.
I don't wanna wait for it to cool down.
So what do I do?
I stick it in the refrigerator,
in the family fridge and family freezer as a kid.
Turns out heat has to go somewhere.
And so the 35 degree fridge and zero degree freezer
would suddenly rise to 40, 50, 60 degrees.
'Cause I just put 200 degree water
in the fridge and freezer.
and I ruined all of the family's food.
If you're for some reason boiling your water,
just let it cool down in the air, that works too.
What a waste of energy too, to boil that much water,
because you have to do it like every couple days.
- Finally you can use Reptisafe made by Zoo Med.
- Simp!
- So what I do is I use Reptisafe
and I distill it myself to just really make sure
there's nothing harmful in the water.
- Look, he's trying to be careful.
It's just a little bit of pain, okay?
- Put the appropriate drops of this into the water.
I calculated 32 drops per gallon,
and you just drop those into the water.
This is already ready to go.
This has been actually out for a couple weeks
because I do it basically in a big bulk.
So I'm gonna to go ahead and fill this water bowl.
You wanna replace the water as often as possible.
If you wanna be really good about it,
then replacing it daily is gonna be best,
or if not, every couple days also works.
- What are all those flakes in the water?
What is... it's a clean bowl, ew,
what are all those flakes from?
- But if not, every couple days also works.
Water, obviously, is extremely important,
and you wanna keep it as sanitary in here as possible.
You can fill it to just about the top,
just to really make sure
the snake always has enough water
and it can soak if needed, if it needs to cool down
or if it's going to shed.
- Yeah. Technically the truth, I guess.
Alright. We're gonna take a little pause here.
This video's not even that long,
I just have so much to dissect about it,
so we need the break anyway.
I'll post the rest of it in two days,
probably a day or two, which you can check out.
If you want some actually useful knowledge,
I'm an affiliate with Blinkist,
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they're not a sponsor of the video,
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but you can get a free trial to that.
I think I might go listen to one,
just to refill my intelligence,
because it just went from like a three,
down straight to zero.
So I'm gonna try and get it back up to like a one or two,
but that'll be it for this video.
See you in part two.
I'm Alex and thanks for watching.
(upbeat instrumental music)