Carpet Python, The Best Pet Snake? - Morelia Spilota - Living Diamond

the Big Red Dog I haven't quite put my my finger on it but it's it looks like a rad face I love this snake  I've had him for several months now and actually, we've had a bit of a journey together we're actually gonna make a full video about that little journey we've had but he's finally doing really great for me and I wanted to talk to you guys about carpet pythons. 

specifically jungle carpet python though a lot of the things that we'll talk about here are applicable to carpet pythons across the board one of the big differences between them are just the size that different carpet pythons can obtained when it comes to beautiful snakes uh now I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I can name a number of snakes that I find absolutely gloriously beautiful and none of them are obviously more beautiful than this I mean look at this snake those colors that contrast my goodness they're just unbelievable I mean I have seen so many people who have seen the snake for the first time and thought oh my gosh that's one of the most beautiful animals I've ever seen they've got these almost jet-black eyes which go perfectly with their jet-black pattern and then I love the yellows they've got paid sensitive pits which is a great story and they look really cool these guys honestly have a very very similar look which isn't actually surprising because they're not super distantly related but it's a very similar look to the green tree pythons which are really really rad snakes but these guys are a little bit easier to keep and have a little bit better temperament and a little bit a little bitless nasty of a bite and I actually. 

like both of these snakes but this a spectacular alternative to green tree pythons I adore these guys plus they're long of slinky they hold on really well I mean some things like a blood Python if you don't hold on to it it'll just fall on the ground these guys live in the trees they can't do that we want to help you figure out if a carpet python might be the right pet reptile for you overall we give the jungle carpet python a score of three-point four out of five and that score was determined based on our five categories which are handle ability care hardiness availability and upfront costs let's begin with handle the ability we give the carpet python. 

actually, a shockingly high score given the reputation of carpet pythons but we give them a score of four out of five I think this is a high score because Carbon pythons have a reputation for being grumpy and as babies they almost are all grumpy these are kind of little snakes from Australia I've mentioned before that when you're a noodle with a head the world is a scary place well when you have a baby noodle with ahead in Australia, the world's an extremely scary place and so baby carpet pythons are very very defensive if you're trying to handle them within their first year of life, they will almost certainly take a shot at you at some point so be aware of that the for really comes after the first-year and that is when they can become pretty darn reasonable to handle though they're much less defensive and then they are as babies I'm still very careful with them you'll notice I'll be looking at the camera a lot less than I normally do in our videos because I'm paying attention to this snake I've only been bitten by three snakes in my life despite having handled hundreds of snakes in fact I've handled while they have bitten other people because the other people were not being as careful about monitoring their behavior.

 as I am this is usually their snake they hand it to me I can tell it's grumpy and I can tell if you reach at it it's gonna bite you and then it bites them and I managed to not be bitten but two of the three times that I've been tagged myself have been times when I wasn't watching the snake so I'm gonna keep an eye on his behavior but he has never since I've had him tried to do anything at all that even comes close to striking at me so I trust him about as much as you can trust a carpet python when you do pick them up try to be very gentle with them try definitely give them some notice that you're coming they have a very strong feeding response generally and so you want to make sure that they don't confuse you for prey and you don't want to come at them from above like a bird because there's still noodles with a head the world is still a scary place and so you don't want to act like the kind of thing that tends to come to eat tree noodles however they can become extremely handleable if you pick them up right and you let them get a good perch because these are a tree snake so they definitely want to feel like they're well perched they're not always in the trees but they do climb very very well and so they when they're up on you they're gonna want to feel well perched and then they can become really excellent but they aren't ball pythons with a ball python most of them I can pick it up and you know I could stare right at you the whole time you know I'm not concerned at all about what a ball python is doing generally that is not necessarily the case of the carpet python. 

I'm gonna keep my eye on it I had an experience a few years ago I was at a reptile expo and I I saw a booth where they were allowing a little girl they handled a carpet python a little bit smaller than this one and I looked over there and I went man that must be a really friendly carpet python because as much as I like this naked as much as I trust him I still don't think I would hand him off to a child but man he must just be a great carpet python in about 15 seconds later I heard a blood-curdling scream and that snake was latched on to that little girl's arm and these have big teeth these guys have big sharp teeth and that wound bled pretty profusely and it sounds like that the girl was pretty afraid of snakes so it was a big deal that she was even handling one that's just not a situation I want to get myself into or inflict on someone else and so I would say a carpet python is something that you could handle right yeah you know if you know the snake and you know its behavior and you know how to handle it right you can handle a lot but it's not something I'd recommend handing it off to people who don't know how to handle snakes how to read snakes who aren't familiar with carpet python specifically something else I love about handling carpet pythons. 

 is that they're a very the manageable size and that does depend some on the species but when we talk about jungle carpet pythons they're a very manageable size for a person to handle alone and not all pythons are this way some pythons you're gonna need somebody to spot you whenever you handle it just to do so safely there's no risk that a carpet python is going to cause you any serious injury just the possibility of getting some teeth in your skin and that hurt but it won't kill you when it comes to caring we give the carpet python a score of three out of five well let's start off with their enclosure these guys as I mentioned before are partially arboreal though they will definitely make use of floor space as well and so the best enclosures for these guys are going to be plastic enclosures like PVC something that's a front entry so you're not coming at them like a bird and it's something that has opaque sides which means you can't see through them especially for a baby because like I said you know the world for baby carpet pythons is a really scary place.

 so pig sides may be one side that you can see into it really clearly and these are a wonderful display snake obviously we look at the things and so you're gonna want to be able to see it but generally speaking you're gonna want to have it feel like a safe place for the snake as well that's gonna be really important for a carpet python water humidity will be very important for these snakes you definitely don't want to let them get dehydrated and they don't need super high levels of humidity but they definitely need humidity to be elevated in most places and one of the best ways to do this is just to have a large water bowl with a lot of surface area and they'll also soak in that water bowl so it's good all around these guys are notoriously great feeders they tend to eat very very well and in the fact they're supposed to be sort of a skinny snake because they do spend a fair amount of time in the trees they can be prone to obesity if overfed they don't need to eat every single week and so that's one thing to watch out for but they're probably gonna eat really well for you, as we've mentioned they can be kind of a nervous snake so they're gonna need places to climb but they're also gonna need places to hide in their enclosure if they just want to getaway from it all and that's pretty understandable as we mentioned humidity.

 can be important for these guys so make sure you pick a substrate that'll hold humidity and that won't mold that's really important like most snakes they don't have any special lighting requirement I mean if there's ambient light in the room that will probably work for them but they do need heat and the heat gradient so I would definitely recommend something like a heating pad or a radiant heat panel on a thermostat because you definitely don't want to cook your snake but given these things really carpet pythons should do very very well for you when it comes to hardiness we give them a score of four out of five like I just said given proper care they should do really really well however they don't tolerate mistakes with their care as well as some other species maybe things like ball pythons which if you don't get it exactly right you know they probably will linger on for a long time and hopefully, you figure it out in correct make corrections these guys aren't quite as tolerant of those sorts of mistakes but they're the specifics of their care are somewhat broad when it comes to availability we give the general carpet python a score of three out of five these guys are actually fairly easy to find from breeders or reptile Expose ut outside of that you're not gonna see them very often they will occasionally. 

 be at pet shops so they are around it's just you can't just count on going to any pet shop at any old time and picking up a jungle carpet python and part of this is because they're all captive-bred which is a wonderful thing that's sort of the case with most things that come out of Australia in fact legally all things that come out of Australia and these guys are certainly becoming more common over time so as time goes on I would expect their availability to increase when it comes to upfront costs we give the carpet python a score of three out of five the snake itself is moderately expensive I mean even even for a wild-type jungle carpet python. 

 expect to pay over $100 easily that would be a pretty great deal actually for a general carpet python, the an enclosure also is somewhat large for a snake this size I mean compared to a similarly sized ball python for example these guys need not only the same sort of floor space but also more vertical space and you're probably not gonna use a rack system like you would with a ball python though you seem to do okay in racks more ideally you're gonna want to give them space decline and a lot of places to hide and places to move around and that's just a big enclosure but the great thing about these things is they're a phenomenal display snake especially compared to something like a ball python which is really just gonna hide in a hole somewhere almost all the time these guys are gonna be out up in a tree exploring around and when you can see them my goodness they're beautiful I would say arguably the most beautiful snake you could possibly get front entry enclosures not only do you need the size.

 but front entry would be the way that I would go and front entry enclosures tend to be more expensive for one reason or another but there are a lot of great ones out there and I would definitely go that way so you're not coming at them like an eagle if you have an enclosure that opens from the top which like I said I don't fairly recommend making sure it has a great lid because snakes are very good at getting out of things especially snakes that are great at climbing so if you don't have a great lid I would not expect to find your snake inside of the enclosure I would expect to find it probably more like up on the curtain rod over your window, that's where the snake will be also possible in a shoe like we mentioned before you don't need lighting for the snake as long as there's ambient lighting in the room but you will need Heat and I would recommend some sort of a heat panel or heat mat controlled by a thermostat for safety like we mentioned before a large water bowl would be great especially with a lot of surface area and something that they can get in and soak from time to time substrates that will hold humidity well and hides and climbing branches these are all things that you're gonna want to have and we'll have links to all these things down in the description in the conclusion we give the jungle carpet python. 

a score of three-point four out of five uh I'll just tell you my opinion if I could only have one snake it wouldn't be a jungle carpet python it would be something that's a lot more handleable that I can hand off to children because that to me is one of the greatest things about having a snake is just being able to share it with other people and to hold it and interact with it and these guys are great about it but I just don't trust them as much with other people who don't know their behavior and how to treat a snake but if you've already got a snake it's great to handle and hand off to other people is a jungle carpet python just a stinking amazing pet snake especially for a displaced Nate you're darn tootin it is I mean oh my gosh look at this thing I adore them I have been thrilled with this guy has surpassed all my expectations for what a jungle carpet python would be like to have as a pet and as I mentioned before I spent some time getting him over being sick and I harassed the heck out of him for two weeks while I gave him antibiotics and during that full two-week period I did something that it was obvious he hated he was nothing but a gentle soul and these guys probably do not deserve the reputation they have but they do deserve respect so if you get one expect it to be us think you need to respect but also expected to be a snake you will enjoy thoroughly as always like and subscribe click the little bells you get notifications and videos about others just stinking rat reptiles come out also thank you to you guys on Patreon I'm going to go ahead and say this Patreon bought this snake so that I could give you a really thorough review of the jungle carpet python and I am very very grateful for that now that has been excellent been a great experience for me. 

 because this is a snake I've wanted to talk about since the beginning of this channel but it was just a snake just think with a bad reputation and one that I didn't have enough personal experience with to feel like I could give you a fair analysis and now because of you guys, I can so thank you only hope to see you real soon he's mine I didn't really like that coloration is that a morph no that's normal yeah he's maybe a particularly bright individual because some of them can kind of brownout as they get older but he's this is a wild type Tendulkar a position that's amazing yeah it's it's one of the best coloration it's anything can I help