- If you're looking to get a ball python,
but you're trying to decide between a juvenile and an adult,
I don't think there's necessarily a better option,
but there are quite a few differences
that are worth considering when picking one out.
I think the first and biggest one that you can think about
is the fact that juveniles are going to eventually have
to be switched from feeding mice, to feeding rats.
Most snakes that are commonly kept,
like corn snakes or King snakes or whatever,
they can pretty much just be fed mice their entire life
'cause they're pretty small.
And basically like a very young corn snake
can be eating day-old mice, and then as it grows,
it almost follows the timeline
of a mouse's life span at the same time
to the point where
once your adult corn snake is an adult corn snake,
it can eat adult mice.
But with ball pythons they're going to outgrow these mice
and they have to be switched to rats.
Mice and rats have different scents,
and I mean, they're different species
and some ball pythons are pickier than others.
I have a few videos about feeding picky snakes,
and trying to transition them and stuff.
And most of the time I've been able to do it.
When I sell ball pythons,
I always try to get the adults on rats before selling them
to make it easier for the buyer.
But there are others times where I just can't do it
and they are so picky they are just stuck on mice.
And so for that reason, I'll just tell the buyer,
like I can't get it off mice
so good luck and make sure that they're okay with that.
And there are definitely some workarounds,
if they don't switch, you can feed it more often.
As some people say,
you could feed a multiple mice at a time.
Other people say you shouldn't do this.
In my experience I've tried it and it's been okay,
but ultimately it's just ideal for an adult ball python
to eat rats.
But what people say is,
oh, well, if you get an adult ball python,
you don't have to worry about it,
it's already going to be on rats.
And ideally I would agree.
If you don't want to have to worry about it,
you can just switch that whole era of his life
with eating mice and just get it when it's eating rats.
But I don't think this is a good gauge necessarily.
And I would argue,
it might even be ideal if you get it as a juvenile
because you have more control over the diet.
So first of all,
they could just be lying to you.
Maybe it's not on rats,
maybe it's going to be hard for you to get the seller
to prove it's actually on rats.
Or maybe it is on rats, but it's on live rats.
A lot of people will say,
yeah, it's eating frozen thawed, whatever.
I'm guessing most people watching this video
are feeding frozen thawed,
'cause that's what I always do and suggest.
So yeah generally speaking,
if you want to feed frozen thawed,
the seller might just tell you,
oh yeah, it's on the frozen thawed,
because most of them know the majority of buyers
are going to want those frozen thawed,
so you have to worry about that and switching them,
or they could also just be lying about the rats altogether.
Maybe the ball pythons still are on mice,
and they're just telling you rats,
because while what are the consequences of them saying that?
So if you get a juvenile,
I'm not necessarily saying this is a good reason to,
but there are a few things you can do.
The first is you could start it at rats at this size.
Obviously not adult rats, that would be a bit large,
but you can get very small rats as well.
Day-old rats and pups and these different sizes,
that a juvenile ball python could eat just fine.
Most people don't do this
because they're a bit more expensive
and they're a bit more hard to find.
And some people just don't consider doing it.
Honestly you'll probably be spending like
25 to 50% more over the life span of the snake,
which they don't eat that often,
so it's not that big of a deal,
but also you might have trouble sourcing them.
In the U.S. you can pretty much just order them online,
but breeders are often running out of rodents nowadays.
I don't think they can really keep up with the demand.
And even oftentimes I have trouble
finding the right size rodent for the animals that I have.
However with the baby,
you could just go ahead and start it with rats from there.
I also, I mean, I don't do that,
I just give the juveniles mice,
because I'd say about half of the time,
they don't even really seem to care about the difference.
And then worst case scenario,
yeah they get stuck on mice
or you can just have a long period
of trying to switch them over.
And I would prefer that.
And I don't think that that should dictate
getting a ball python,
I just don't really trust sellers enough
to have that be the defining factor
of what you're going to get.
There's also, and I'm realizing,
there's kind of two sides to every single point I'm making,
but the second is the temperament.
So with a juvenile baby,
younger ball pythons and younger animals in general,
or at least in the reptile world,
tend to be more finicky and a bit more defensive.
They kind of have to be,
this is not very intimidating to anything.
So oftentimes they do just are naturally more nippier
because they want to stay alive and natural selection,
they're trying to avoid that,
they don't want to die generally.
But at the same time, what I would argue
is you have more control
over the animal's future temperament,
because you're going to kind of build its memory
and build its experiences,
so say a juvenile was not cared for well,
or it was never handled,
and then it becomes an adult
because that's normally what the juveniles do,
and it's all of a sudden,
well, not all of a sudden,
it's the whole time it's been grumpy
and upset and doesn't like being handled
and it might be nippy and try and bite you and stuff.
Getting bit by a ball python, I'd say it hurts,
the feeding responses, I think hurt,
but maybe I'm just a baby myself.
But either way, I forgot where I was with this point.
What was I saying?
With the juveniles,
you can treat them as you wish,
you can make them not like you,
you can be annoying and make them bite you all the time.
And they'll probably continue to bite you.
I wouldn't suggest that route.
I would suggest being confident,
but patient and careful with the ball python
so that it naturally learns over time
oh, this is not a threat and handling is not a bad thing.
And then as it grows,
it's going to pretty much remember that.
With adults,
you can definitely get a grumpy ball python to calm down.
It's a lot easier than other species of reptiles
that are kept.
But at the same time,
you also might just not want to have to deal with that,
because also an adult ball by phone has bigger teeth
and a bigger mouth, and it's going to hurt a little more.
So working with it from a juvenile,
it's just kind of nice
because you get more control
over how it's going to be in the future.
Temperament, I think is personally
kind of like the nurture versus nature thing.
I think the majority of it is nurture,
but there are going to be differences
between every ball python, so that's not guaranteed.
The next thing is you can kind of gauge sellers a bit better
if you're looking to buy an adult ball python,
this isn't necessarily that important.
And when I wrote this down,
like for the outline of this video,
I wasn't really sure what the point of mentioning it is,
but basically,
so when you're buying an adult ball python
and you see it in pictures or in person,
you can kind of tell,
like, has the snake most likely been power fed,
as in being like fed really fast to grow extremely quickly,
which can ultimately lead to some health issues
or is it skinny and maybe been malnourished
over its lifetime?
Is it on the smaller end, again with malnourishment?
With things like that,
you can kind of gauge if the seller is good or bad
at raising the animals.
The problem with this is
you don't know if the seller raised it.
Maybe they haven't had it for that long.
I mean, in my case, the animals I sell,
I normally only have for a few months
before actually selling them to someone else.
But with other sellers,
they would have raised them from juveniles to an adult,
maybe to breed them and then sell them
or they just kept it in or whatever,
I don't really know why they wouldn't sell this juvenile.
But you can at least see, okay,
so this snake is really healthy as an adult.
The seller most likely did a good job.
Compared to a pretty new juvenile,
maybe you don't know what the treatment of the adults,
and maybe you don't know if you're buying
from someone that's a bit more ethical.
Because you can normally tell
on the health and just the overall animals,
how ethical the seller is
and how good they are at caring for the animals and stuff.
Of course, you can just ask questions.
You can ask about their setups and care and everything,
but it can definitely be hard to say.
And there are some people that just don't care
really where the animal came from
or what the seller is like,
they just want an ultimately healthy animal.
So that might not even apply to you.
But again, getting an adult,
you can kind of see as an example, to a certain extent,
if it was cared for on the better or worse side of things,
but it's definitely not perfect.
On the flip side with adults though,
they're probably going to live shorter.
This is not a perfect, again, point it can vary a lot.
This juvenile could die tomorrow
from an underlying health condition I don't know about,
or an adult can live a super long time,
but most likely an adult is gonna be further
into his lifespan,
whether that adult is three years old or 15 years old,
people sell them in all different sorts of ages
or rehome them, if you're getting one
that has been through multiple homes or something.
So yeah, basically you're going to be there
for less of it's life, most likely, if it's an adult.
At the same time,
you don't necessarily know how it was raised,
even if from the outside,
it does look like it was raised well.
There could be other things,
like maybe it wasn't properly fed,
or maybe this doesn't really apply with ball pythons,
but as an example, to get an idea of what I'm saying,
maybe it was fed up poor diet
and you don't realize
that one of its organs is weaker than it should be
because it's missing a certain nutrient or something.
With ball pythons maybe it was like more dehydrated
as a youngin, which could lead to different organ issues
or quicker organ failure.
And you can tell how doctorly I am,
because I really don't know what organs are affected
by what, but you get the idea.
With the juvenile, you have control over its growth,
and for that reason,
you have a better idea of what its health conditions are.
You're not just being given this adult animal
where who knows what it's been through,
who knows what's happening inside of it,
and it's a bit more of a gamble,
but again, there's so many sides to this,
because getting this juvenile,
it could still develop something underlying
that you just don't notice.
Some people bring all of their reptiles to the vet,
like every six to 12 months.
Vets always telling me,
come back in six months for an exam.
I mean, yeah, they can examine it,
they'll charge you like 60 or 70 bucks for it to go,
oh wow, snake, healthy goodbye.
Of course you could get an x-ray,
but if you get an x-ray every year,
that's kind of over the top.
And also a lot of radiation, probably.
There are ways to see if your animal,
as it grows has underlying health conditions,
but ultimately, yeah, it's a live animal,
it's a gamble overall.
But I thought I'd throw it in there.
With an adult, you can breed it sooner.
You didn't really need me to tell you that,
you could probably guess that.
However, you can also guarantee
that it's going to be the right size,
because when breeding reptiles,
it's normally based on the weight of the female.
So you want, oh, I'm going to breed this ball python
once it reaches this many grams
or this leopard gecko or crested gecko,
it's a good way to make sure it is suitable
and able to have all the nutrients
and necessary resources in its body, AKA nutrients,
I just said the same thing twice.
To produce those eggs without risking its own health,
and while making sure that the eggs patch and stuff
and are healthy on like as well.
Why is this ball python upside down?
So you get an idea of an adult,
oh, it's already adult size and breeder size,
and that might be ideal if you're getting it,
not necessarily just as a pet,
but as a pet project or a breeder.
Also, there's a chance that it can be a proven breeder.
'Cause what some people do is they have a ball python,
they raise it, they breed it,
and then they are done with that project.
And they're ready to move the animal onto someone else,
which means that they can prove that it's bred before,
because not every individual animal
is going to be as good of a quality of a breeder.
So with some animals that might mean its clutches
have fewer eggs or less healthy eggs,
or it doesn't even produce at all.
So getting an adult,
if you're going to breed, you already know,
okay, maybe it's a proven breeder
and you can try and get the information on that.
You can see if it's already large enough or not,
and not have to gamble.
And also you don't have to wait.
And the final one is you can go ahead
and build the life-long enclosure for an adult ball python.
This might be a pro, might be a con.
Some people like transitioning the snake
through different size enclosures,
and some people like rebuilding the enclosures.
And ultimately you could start this juvenile
in a three foot enclosure if you wanted.
I don't think that that would be unhealthy.
A lot of people say,
well, you should keep smaller animals
in smaller tubs or smaller enclosures.
But I think as long as it has clutter
and places for the animal to hide
and easy access to water
and different temperature gradients,
and it has everything it needs,
I don't think the size of the enclosure actually dictates
whether it's a good set up or not.
So it can be a really lame small setup that is cozy,
or a really nice, huge setup
that's actually way cozier than the small one.
But if you don't want to do that,
what most people do is they get a juvenile ball python
and they get maybe a 20 gallon or equivalent enclosure.
So that's 30 by 12 by 12 inches, whatever,
yeah, just a smaller thing.
And then they upgrade it over time.
Some people do three enclosures,
some people do just two and then others do just the one.
But if you just want to skip it all
and you just you're like, all right, this is an adult.
It's pretty much done growing,
because technically they grow their entire life,
but it slows down a lot.
But all right, it's mostly done growing,
now I know how big of an enclosure I need.
Cause maybe this will be a frequently big ball python
in the future,
and it'll actually need a six foot,
okay that's a bit exaggerated,
but you get my point.
And yeah, that's that,
those are the biggest differences that I know of
in regards to getting a juvenile versus adult ball python.
If at the end of the day, if you want a ball python
and you are prepared to get one,
I don't think you're really going wrong in either way.
I mean, I guess another reason
that people simply like seeing it go
from a baby to an adult so,
but I didn't really need to tell you that in the video.
In regards to feeding,
I would say that that is the most relevant reason,
but that shouldn't scare you away
from one option or the other, because even,
I mean, people are going to disagree with me
as to whether you're going to be better off
with feeding with an adult or juvenile
for the reasons of, oh, is it live, is it frozen?
Is it already on mice or rats or whatever?
Yeah, it's up to you.
But more information doesn't hurt.
So sometimes I think you can have an information overload,
like if you're looking for a ball python
and you're watching every ball python video you can get,
a bunch of them are probably contradicting each other,
and I'd say kind of take a step back
and just write down some notes
and see what you really have questions of.
But ultimately,
hopefully this helped give you some actually useful insight.
So these are the kinds of videos I used to do all the time.
These are the kinds of videos that really grew my channel.
I just wonder if they're too niche,
like how many of you are really looking for a ball python?
But if you want, I can do more videos like this
on different species that I have experienced in
on all sorts of topics and I have a lot of old ones.
So let me know your thoughts on that in the comments,
and also any other things that I forgot
in regards to adults versus juveniles,
but that'd be it for this video.
I'm Alex, and thanks for watching.
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