BP Not Eating

[dayanabanana]

Hello!

I have a yellow-bellied spider ball python. I got her last October, and was told she was about 8-10 months old. I had her in a 20 gal tank at first and she was eating biweekly both live and frozen/thawed, she was never too picky. Around November or December we moved her into a 4x2x2, bioactive, PVC enclosure. She started off feeding fine, we kept her on a 50/50 diet of the live and frozen and she never had an issue eating either. The last time i weighed her, around February, she was 500+ grams.

She has not been wanting to eat for about 2 months now, we have offered live, and they quite literally became roomies we have also offered pre-killed and frozen/thawed small rats. She has lost about 200g of weight, and while her ribs are not visible, I’m very concerned with her behavior. She already shed about 3 weeks ago, I thought that would solve the issue but it did not. Someone on another group said that they act weird during spring.

Because she is a yellow-belly I was concerned it might be their genetic head wobble, however, I have not seen her head move abnormally during feeding, or at any other point.

I adjusted her lighting recently as well, to see if that might help. She was using a 125w bulb, which we upgraded to a 150w ceramic bulb to keep a higher temp at night and still give her a natural cycle. She has no heating pad because it would not penetrate the layer of substrate in her enclosure. I was also told it was not necessary to use it if she had good lighting. She is not lethargic; she travels around her enclosure and actually hangs out more on the cold side under a plant.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am still fairly new and want to make sure my animals are comfortable and healthy.

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[armiyana]

@dayanabanana

Because she is a yellow-belly I was concerned it might be their genetic head wobble

This would be the spider gene that causes wobble. Yellowbelly is not a problematic gene.

As far as the baby goes though… how long after the change in enclosure did she stop eating? Some BPs actually do better in smaller enclosures, so that could be something. Or did anything change in the habitat after you moved her?
I also hope that saying ‘becoming roomies’ meant you left the snake unattended with the rodent. That’s very dangerous.

The other thing I am curious about is if this is possibly a case of mistaken sex. Typically it’s the male BPs that go off food at that age and time of year. Females usually won’t get too fussy until around 2-3 years when they start to ovulate.

If we can see pictures of the habitat and know what the temps are in the habitat we may be able to troubleshoot this a lot faster. Sometimes there’s something small that gets missed but these guys can be fussy.

[d_y_python]

Changing housing and temps, it could just be settling in and adjusting. If it is always on the cool side, then it might also be too hot. I won’t get into using lamps v pads for heating. Lamps will cause it to be dryer and hoter air temps compared to pads. This could also affect its actions.

If you still have the old setup, i would go back to it, wait a week, and see if it eats again. Then you will know if it’s the new setup, size, temps, humidity.