Baskden a warm den for reptile folk

🩺 Your free vet-prep sheet

Your Children's Python Vet-Prep Sheet

Reptile vets are rare, and it is easy to freeze in a crisis. This is the one page to have ready — how to find a vet, what to bring, what to tell them, and the questions to ask. This helps you prepare for a visit — it is not a way to treat at home. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

Black & white saves ink and prints cleanly on any printer.

Not sure it’s a vet trip yet? Try the Is this normal? triage first — many worries turn out to be a husbandry fix.

Baskden a warm den for reptile folk · baskden.com
Children's Python — Vet-Prep Sheet

🔍 Find a reptile / exotics vet — before you need one

  • Search the ARAV Find-a-Vet directory (the Association of Reptilian & Amphibian Veterinarians), or in the UK the RCVS Find-a-Vet — or search "reptile / exotics vet near me".
  • Call ahead and ask the key question: "Do you see reptiles?" Not every practice does.
  • Ask the exam fee when you call. Knowing the cost up front removes the money-panic in a crisis.
  • Find and save one now, while things are calm — not in the middle of an emergency.

📇 Fill this in now — before the crisis

Two minutes now saves ten in a panic. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

My reptile vet
My children's python
What I'm seeing

🚨 Is this an emergency now?

See a reptile vet promptly if you notice any of these:

  • Open-mouth breathing, wheezing, popping/clicking sounds, or bubbles/mucus around the mouth or nose (possible respiratory infection) - see an exotics vet.
  • Repeated incomplete or stuck sheds, especially retained eye caps, or a stuck shed on the tail tip that could cut off circulation.
  • Refusing food for an extended stretch alongside weight loss or a sunken/dehydrated look.
  • Mouth held open, redness, swelling, or cheesy material inside the mouth (possible mouth rot / stomatitis).
  • Lumps, wounds, discoloration, mites (tiny moving specks), or regurgitating meals - book an exotics vet; this record is for triage, not diagnosis.

When in doubt, a vet call is never wrong — most issues are reversible if caught early.

🚗 On the way / while you wait

✅ Do

  • Keep it warm at a safe transport temperature — a cold reptile crashes fast (a warm car or a covered container with a warm, not hot, pack helps).
  • Keep it calm, dark and quiet in a secure, ventilated container — stress makes almost everything worse.
  • Bring it in its own container so the vet sees it as it lives.

⛔ Don't

  • Don’t offer food, or any OTC, aquarium-shop or online-forum remedy — many are useless or harmful and can mask the signs.
  • Don’t let it get cold on the way in.
  • Don’t handle it more than you must.

🎒 What to bring

  • A short video and a couple of clear photos of the behaviour or sign — it may not show it in the clinic.
  • A note of your setup (basking, cool-side and night temperatures, UVB, humidity, substrate) and exactly what — and how often — you feed.
  • Your reptile, transported safely in its own secure, ventilated container — kept warm (see below), not in a cold car.

🗣️ What to tell the vet

A general vet may not know this species. Come ready to explain its correct care:

Temperature
88-90°F (31-32°C) warm-side surface/hotspot, provided by an under-tank heater or overhead heat source on a thermostat. Verify with a probe or temp gun, never a stick-on dial. 75-80°F (24-27°C) at the cool end, giving the snake a true thermal gradient to choose from. A natural night drop is fine and healthy; roughly 68-75°F (20-24°C). Don't let the whole enclosure fall below the upper 60s°F.
UVB & lighting
Not required. This is a nocturnal, secretive species that does fine without UVB, though a low-output tube (roughly Ferguson Zone 1–2, a basking UVI of about 2.0–3.0) offers modest benefits for vitamin D synthesis and general well-being. If you skip it, provide a proper day/night light cycle instead. UVI need is low.
Humidity
Moderate, around 50-60%. They're forgiving of a fairly wide range, but bump humidity up (mist lightly or offer a humid hide) during a shed. Always keep a bowl of fresh water big enough to soak in.
Enclosure
Adult minimum 36 x 18 x 18 in (3 x 2 x 2 ft / ~90 x 45 x 45 cm) of floor space; bigger is always better. Being a ground-dwelling snake, prioritize length and width over height, and use a secure front-opening enclosure with a tight lid (pythons are excellent escape artists).
Substrate
Aspen shavings, cypress mulch, coconut husk/coir, beech chip, or plain paper towels for quarantine/hatchlings, at about 2-3 in deep so the snake can burrow. Avoid cedar and pine, which give off oils that are toxic to reptiles.
Diet
Strict carnivore fed appropriately sized rodents. Prey should be no wider than the thickest part of the snake's body. Adults eat an adult mouse to a small rat roughly every 10-14 days; growing juveniles every 5-7 days. Use frozen-thawed prey rather than live.
Supplements
Whole prey (mice/rats) is nutritionally complete, so routine calcium/vitamin dusting isn't needed. Just feed properly sized, quality frozen-thawed rodents.

⚕️ Reptiles are ectotherms kept at species-specific temperatures — a cold reptile can’t metabolise medicines properly, so tell the vet your exact temperatures and keep it warm for transport. Reptiles are prey animals and hide illness until it is advanced, so early changes matter. Mention your UVB/lighting and any supplements or remedies you’ve already used, and ask for reptile-safe products and doses.

Then note which of the warning signs (above) you are seeing, when they started, and whether they are getting worse.

❓ Questions to ask

  • Do you routinely see reptiles? If not, can you refer me to a vet who does?
  • What are the likely causes — and could my setup or diet be contributing?
  • What is the treatment plan, the likely cost, and what should I watch for at home?
  • How do I prevent this from happening again?