Children's Python — Fact Sheet

Antaresia childreni · Children’s Python

Full care guide and sources

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

Plan the adult enclosure before purchase. Treat 90 x 45 x 45 cm (0.4 m² floor area) as the practical minimum for a normal adult, and use more space when the animal is large, active, or difficult to furnish well. Use tight hides, locked doors or clips, covered movement routes, clean water, and a measured thermal gradient before adding decorative space.

🪨 Substrate and furnishings

Use at least two snug hides, partial cover between hides, rough shedding surfaces, and stable low climbing pieces. Avoid heavy unsecured rocks, adhesive tape inside the enclosure, decor holes that can trap the snake, and cable gaps that a juvenile can test.

💡 Lighting

Use a regular 10-12 hour day-night cycle. Low-level UVB can be offered as an option, but the animal must be able to leave both light and UV exposure without leaving the correct heat range.

🌡️ Temperature

• Basking spot: 32-34 °C
• Daytime air: 26-30 °C
• Cool zone: 24-26 °C
• Night: 22-25 °C

💧 Humidity and water

Baseline humidity: 40-60%. Temporary shed support: 65-75%.

Manage humidity with microclimates: a dry retreat, a more humid shed hide, fresh water, and ventilation. Retained shed should lead to checks of hydration, heat, and airflow rather than repeated forced soaking.

🪳 Feeding

Feed whole prey for body condition, not maximum appetite. Juveniles may eat every 7-10 days; many adults do better on a 10-21 day rhythm depending on prey size, season, activity, and reproductive condition. Frozen-thawed rodents are the normal staple, and repeated refusals should prompt a check of temperature, cover, disturbance, shed cycle, and prey size before force-feeding is considered.

🩺 Health — warning signs

Common problems include escape, overfeeding, retained shed, dehydration, mites, respiratory signs, mouth inflammation, regurgitation, nose rub, and stress from open housing. Change one husbandry variable at a time and keep temperature, feeding, shed, weight, and cleaning records.