Chapter 10 of 12 · Manny's Care Guide

Buying and shipping

Disclaimer: I'm not a veterinarian and I don't hold a degree in animal science or animal care. This is a guide I compiled and use with my own ball pythons. For a sick animal, a reptile vet is the authority.

Buying

Buy established hatchlings. That means the first shed is done and the baby has taken several consecutive meals on its own. Breeders sell after three to five consecutive meals [1].

Our plan: nothing leaves here before four consecutive unassisted meals, and we'd rather you see five on frozen-thawed. Every hatchling goes out with its hatch date, weights, feeding record and genetics as tested or as proven by its parents, with "possible het" stated as such.

Ask every seller:

  • hatch date and current weight, and whether weights were taken empty or right after a meal (a listing weight taken after a big meal can run well over the empty weight)
  • the feeding record: what prey, live or frozen-thawed, how many in a row
  • last meal date and last shed
  • temperament notes
  • how the sex was determined. Popping is the lower-risk method for young snakes and probing is preferred on adults; neither is for beginners [2][3]. A "female" pop result is worth re-checking, because some males don't pop, and only breeding is 100% [4].

Morphs to understand before you buy. Spider morphs carry a heritable neurological "wobble." A 2014 expert survey treated it as part of the morph [5], and all four spider morphs in a 2022 anatomical study showed it, to varying degrees, with inner-ear malformations behind it [6]. Related spider-complex morphs are reported to wobble by keepers but weren't in either study. We don't keep or breed any of them. Anything with a health flag is sold here with full disclosure or not at all.

Shipping

Live reptiles ship overnight only, by FedEx First, Priority or Standard Overnight, through a shipper with FedEx live-animal approval (which is why breeders use a broker like Ship Your Reptiles or Reptiles2You). FedEx Office and Walgreens counters can't accept live animals; they go in at a staffed FedEx Ship Center or with a courier [7][8].

Temperature rules (the broker guidelines are the authority; check the forecast highs and lows at origin, the sort hub and the destination) [9][10][11]:

  • Roughly 40 to 90 °F is the comfortable window; the brokers' hard limits are about 35 to 40 °F at the bottom and 95 °F at the top.
  • Below about 70 °F: a 40-hour heat pack in the box, or longer (MorphMarket recommends 72-hour packs).
  • Above about 80 to 85 °F: a cold or phase pack, and ship hold-for-pickup.
  • Below about 35 to 40 °F or at 95 °F and up: don't ship. Wait for weather.

Hold-for-pickup at a staffed FedEx Ship Center means the box never rides a delivery truck in the afternoon heat or sits on a porch. Near the edges of the window it's the safer choice; the person picking up needs photo ID [9][11].

Our practice: live animals we ship or receive go through our local staffed FedEx Ship Center, hold-for-pickup, collected the morning they arrive and straight into a pre-heated tub. We confirm by phone that the Ship Center will hold it.

Sources for this chapter

  1. ball-pythons.net, breeder thread on selling hatchlings
  2. ReptiFiles, Ball python sexing
  3. MorphMarket Community, Learning to pop and/or probe
  4. ball-pythons.net, breeder thread on popping vs probing
  5. Rose, M. P. and Williams, D. L. (2014), "Neurological dysfunction in a ball python (Python regius) colour morph and implications for welfare," Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine 23(3): 234–239, doi:10.1053/j.jepm.2014.06.002
  6. Starck, J. M. et al. (2022), "Malformations of the sacculus and the semicircular canals in spider morph pythons," PLOS ONE 17: e0262788, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0262788
  7. FedEx, How to ship live animals
  8. Reptiles Express, Packing guidelines
  9. MorphMarket Support, Shipping temperatures
  10. USARK, Shipping temperature table
  11. Outback Reptiles, How to ship live reptiles safely

Last revised November 2, 2026.