Important question

Once you have your reptile settled in and you got them on a good feeding schedule, how long is a good time to wait before getting another? I just got my ball python eating and into his new enclosure and would love to get another, but I’m not sure if it’s to soon.

I personally would wait a bit, because while a ball python is not a ton of work, I think it’s important to make sure you have the time, finances, space, emergency prepardness plans, etc for each animal you bring into your life. There’s somethig about ball pythons, probably the “collectability”, that makes people go from having one to 26 over the course of a few months and it’s one of the things that alarms me most about the hobby.

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5 minutes is my go to number.

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Ha, me too, until I run out of money.

If this is your first snake I’d advise that you wait for at least a year, even if you have time and resources to otherwise care for more snakes. Learn all you can and take your time. But you don’t have to take anyone’s advice, not certainly mine.

If you’ve kept other reptile species before, or feel very confident in your ability to care for more snakes, use your judgment. Don’t let anyone tell you you have to wait, but if you’re new to reptiles or snakes, that’s definitely what I would suggest. Try not to go too nuts buying everything in sight, if you do get another one soon. When you do decide to get more than one you’ll have to start considering quarantine processes sooner rather than later, or face potential bad things. You’ll probably get away with not doing quarantine with two animals, or you won’t, and then your animals will suffer. Any quarantine is better than no quarantine.

I’ve kept snakes for 30+ years, and I learn new things all the time, don’t rush.

We went from 7 snakes to 48 this year, and more we’ll keep that are yet to hatch. It’s more or less our whole world now, by design.

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I also think its important to know where your threshold is when it comes to keeping reptiles, or any animal, really. If you overwhelm yourself with more than you are capable of handling, its going to lead to being burnt out and uninterested.

it all comes down to your judgment, though. if you think you’re prepared and ready for another, i wouldn’t see an issue with it.

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All of this is solid advice! Speaking from personal experiences if you plan to breed at some point in the future the last thing you want to try and do is collect a bunch of animals. You will end up with a collection with no direction! Take your time get used to working with your animal and start taking time to see what genes you really like. Then if you decide you want to expand your collection you will have more hands on experiences and a better idea of what projects you want to work on or if you just want to keep snakes you will know which ones really give you the wow factor.

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