With ball pythons, the feeding history is the health history. This species is famous for fasting, and a baby that is feeding reliably is worth more than a prettier baby that is not. A good breeder expects these questions, answers in specifics, and can show you records. Vague reassurance — 'oh, he's a great eater' — with nothing behind it is the answer that should slow you down.
Feeding History: The Questions That Matter
Ask what the snake is eating: prey type and size, and whether it is frozen-thawed or live. Frozen-thawed is the safer, more convenient long-term diet, and a baby switched onto it already saves you a difficult conversion later; a snake that only takes live, or only one prey type, may do so for years. Ask how many consecutive meals it has taken without a refusal, and how often it is offered food. Several unassisted meals in a row is the benchmark for a well-started hatchling — a snake sold after one or two feeds, or one that has needed assist feeding, carries a real risk of becoming a stressful, vet-adjacent project for a new keeper.
Ask about refusals directly, too: has it ever skipped for weeks, does it fast seasonally, and what does the breeder do when it refuses? Experienced breeders track this per snake, and their answers tell you what normal looks like for this individual line and age. Also ask to see the feeding record itself — dates and what was taken. Breeders who log feeds can produce it in seconds.
Health: Sheds, Breathing, and the Collection
Ask how the snake sheds: complete sheds in one piece, with clear eye caps, point to good health and humidity; a history of stuck, patchy sheds is worth knowing about. Ask whether it has ever shown respiratory signs — wheezing, clicking, mucus, open-mouth breathing — and whether mites have ever appeared in the collection and how they were dealt with. Every large collection faces mites eventually; honest breeders describe their quarantine and treatment routine without flinching, while denial is the worrying answer. Ask how new animals are quarantined before joining the collection, the snake's sex and how it was confirmed, its hatch timing and starting weight, and whether a vet has ever seen it.
Ask about lineage with the same specificity: the parents, the morph and any claimed genetics, and whether those claims are documented or visual. Genetics you cannot verify are a story, and the price should reflect that.
The Guarantee, In Writing
Finally, pin the guarantee down: how long does it run from collection or delivery, what exactly does it cover — feeding failure, illness appearing in the first days, death — and what is the remedy: refund, replacement, or return at whose cost? What conditions void it, such as your setup temperatures being wrong? A brief guarantee in clear writing protects you more than a generous one that exists only in conversation. Also ask what support comes after: breeders who answer feeding questions three months later are the ones who bred the snake well in the first place.
When the answers are good, make sure they do not evaporate at handover: with KinsLe's Transferrable Profiles, the breeder's feeding log, shed history, and health notes can pass to you with the snake's profile intact, so the record you interrogated so carefully becomes the first chapter of your own keeping notes rather than a conversation you half-remember.