Royal pythons are naturally secretive nocturnal snake's. In the wild a royal python will spend most of it's time in rodent burrows, or termite mounds. Most royals will do pleasantly well around humans, and I'll recommend CB royals to anyone. There's a lot of things spoken about when it come's to feeders and non-feeders. From my experience they will feed very well, and when they don't, it's because this is what they are. It's not a problem to the royal, only the keeper.

It's recommended for a full sized adult royal, 3ft x 1ft of floor area. Racking is another way of keeping royals, and they tend to do very well in these. In a vivarium, there should be a way of heating, we use heat matts with a pulse proportional thermostat. We allow a basking spot of 89-92F in the warm end, and we aim to provide an ambient temperature of 80-85F in the warm end, with a cool end of 78-80F. In a vivarium with dimensions 3ft x 1ft x 1ft (estimating), then we would also provide heating from above. It's recommend this source be on a thermostat also. We use red lighting, and a 25W bulb (without a stat) and in a room that sits about 75F, it creates a nice thermal gradient. Lighting is not essential to use for royals, but can be helpful to manage ambient temperatures. If using higher wattage bulbs they should go on a dimmer stat. All bulbs should also be guarded so the royal cannot burn themselves. Ceramics are another way of providing warmth, which should also be on a thermostat. Using a digital thermometer is a good way of reassuring your snake's environment is a healthy one.

Humidity is hard to measure inside a viv. Where ever you have a gauge placed, it will likely read differently elsewhere. What the aim is, is to provide humidity of around 50-60%, in vivariums you might find there's a lot of ventilation which allows humidity to escape. The easiest way to provide more if it's low, is to use a large surface area water bowl, and if this doesn't help, then blocking off some ventilation might be required. We rarely measure humidity, due to aspen and newspaper being water absorbant. Where the royal's hide, it might be nice and humid in there, so we just leave them to it. Too much humidity can cause respiratory illness, and too little will mainly cause a bad shed (if conditions are really dry then you run the risk of respiratory illness and dehydration). If we ever have a royal in a bad shed, we allow them to soak in a tub overnight at about 84F, then come back and help them out. We've found if our royals feed regularly, they shed easily. It can be helpful to spray a little bit of water in their tanks before they shed.
Royal's require hide's and a happy royal will always use them.

We use aspen shavings and newspaper. We change out newspaper after it's been soiled, and wash it out, and with using aspen we remove the small amount of aspen that's been soiled, and every few months change out all the aspen and clean. It's best to keep young royals on newspaper, or kitchen roll.

Royals at a young age can likely go straight onto rat pinkies. Since rats are the favourite choice, it seems like a good idea to get them started on them sooner than later. Royals can start an addiction to mice, so always good to remember that when a fully grown royal is stuck with mice, they will probably eat about 5-8 adult mice per feeding. Tricks to get a royal feeding are never ending, the one's we do use is heating the rodent in warm/hot water (approx 50 deg C) for about 30seconds (dependant on size of rodent of course, but the aim is not to cook them!). Heating the head of the rodent under running hot water. Different food items, and scenting. Once the python has grabbed it's meal, another trick is to wiggle it's tail gentley, so the snake feels like it's killing. Some meals can often be left if this is not done. Some royals will eat regularly if the rodent is left inside the viv. We feed all age's of royals once every 7-10 days. An appropriate sized rodent is to be no bigger than the girth of the royal itself.

We think keeping a record for each snake is highly beneficial. If you check out the resources section you’ll find an excel spreadsheet and a Microsoft works spreadsheet that we made up for our record keeping.