Hey everyone, I’ve got a bit of a problem and maybe you guys with me experience with ball pythons can help me out. I’ve got two ball pythons. A male banana blade spider clown who’s about two and a half years old and a female pastel clown who just turned a year old. My female smashes food every week and hasn’t skipped a meal. About four months ago my male who had only skipped one meal up until now decided to stop eating. He hasn’t eaten in those four months. Nothings changed in his tub and I haven’t really been handling him since he stopped eating other than to take him out to clean the tub, thinking that it might stress him. He’s lost a little weight but nothing serious. I know they can go a long time without eating so that’s why I’m not freaking out. Any tips to get him to eat? Before he stopped he was eating frozen thawed medium sized rats and I’m still offering each week/ every other week.
I would try offering him something smaller to see if he takes it, and sometimes switching up prey type helps as well. See if he’ll take a live mouse
I’ve got a male that stops feeding around the end of October for the past two years. He has went as long as 5 months. I’ve accepted this as his normal behavior when it’s breeding season.
Please correct me if I’m off track.
Alright awesome. Yeah I’ll try a smaller prey item when I feed him next. Not a huge fan of feeding love but if he doesn’t go for that I’ll try a live mouse.
If you do opt to try live, put the snake in a paper bag and then drop the prey in with him. Make sure neither can get out of the bag of course. Put the bag in a dark quiet place. My vet told me to try this and it worked like a charm……
No no no, on so many levels. If you’re feeding live you need to observe and make sure that the snake grabs it, or take the prey out immediately. Leaving an uninterested snake in close quarters with a rat/mouse without supervision leaves a lot of potential for your snake to be injured by the rodent. Moving to feed also usually has the opposite effect, because you’re stressing your snake out further by taking it out of its enclosure
Agree try something smaller. Personally I avoid offering a mouse unless I’m desperate out of fear they get used to just waiting for another one, but that’s your call. I’ve definitely done it many times tho to jump start a feeding response, but I’ll usually have waited at least a few months for a full grown ball python.
Another thing is doing a full cage clean, disinfect, replace substrate can often increase their hunger if it’s been a while since the last one. So don’t put off the big clean days just because they’re not pooping.
Especially for my 2+ years males it’s pretty standard that most will flip into breeding mode once per year where they really don’t want to eat often. And then one day they snap back out of it and eat like crazy. Just watch for weight loss or other signs of sickness, and make sure all the husbandry, temp, and humidity etc is right.
@upstate_exotic_reptiles I need to apologize for my awful advice regarding tips on getting a ball python to eat. Yes, NEVER leave live prey with a snake unattended, as the prey can easily become the predator and the snake can be seriously injured if not mortally wounded. As an owner of multiple pet snakes, I feed frozen thawed. IMO this method is more humane for the prey and way safer for the snake.
There are several arguable pros and cons for feeding in the enclosure but here again IMO yes feeding a snake in its own enclosure makes so much more sense than grabbing it out of it’s home and sticking it in another container and expect it to eat (way too stressful for the sake in most cases) and totally unnecessary. But to each his own on this topic IMO.
All that being said, here is the reason for the terrible advice I doled out:
First, I spoke up without thinking. My vet (believe it or not I worked at her clinic for several years) did suggest that I offer a small live mouse to my BP which had suddenly started refusing her weekly FT medium rat. I had been feeding her in her tub of course.
Hence my vet suggested putting her in a paper bag with the mouse to see if it would peak her interest as she would be in closer quarters with the mouse. As soon as I dropped the mouse in with her she grabbed it and I made sure she killed it and began eating before I left her alone for a few minutes. She had always been a private eater. Why I suggested leaving the snake alone without making sure the prey was attacked by the snake and killed before walking away is beyond me 🫢so I glad I was called out.
Feeding, unattended, a live mouse or rat etc., to a snake is extremely irresponsible, as the poor snake cannot get away in an enclosed space if it doesn’t want to feed. I have heard people say feeding live to a snake is better because it replicates being in the wild for the snake but I say no because if the snake is contained in a cage, that blows the “wild” replication right out of the water!
I hope I have explained myself and corrected all erroneous advice.
Thank you for reading this. Have a great evening!