I posted this the last time you asked this question.....

Well, the good news is, from the pic, he's obviously been eating something, which means he will eat again. Right now it's all about relieving stress on the animal. First, make sure his enclosure affords him a place to hide himself away from the outside world - something really dark and tight. Second, leave him completely alone for the next week or two. Don't continually try and feed him when he is refusing every attempt - this just adds more stress to the situation. The next feeding attempt, try putting a f/t food item of appropriate size in the enclosure at the entrance to his hide box/shelter just after lights out. With any luck, it will be gone in the morning. If this results in another refusal, repeat the above steps for at least another week. In the meantime, you should only be going into his enclosure to change the water out. If you think about it, you can check on him a few hours after lights out with a flashlight to see if he is exploring his cage, but again the key is to alleviate any stress, so be sure to use a flashlight and don't turn on the room lights. Also, keep an eye on where he hangs out in his shelter. The hope is that after a week or two, you will begin to see his nose around the entrance which may indicate he is back in hunting/ambush mode. Back in the early 90's when I worked at a pet shop with a small reptile department, imported adult ball pythons were very popular. Of course, about 50% would refuse all regular attempts to feed and many would literally starve themselves to death over the course of a year or more. Frustrated customers would bring them into me after not feeding for sometimes several months, and I had a system that worked for me EVERY time with every ball python and it goes like this:

1. cage setup - newspaper substrate, hide box with small entrance hole, cover all sides of cage (back in those days it was aquariums) with newspaper so snake could not see out and people could not see in) and a water bowl
2. do not touch, handle or disturb the snake at all for 3 full weeks; only open the cage to change the water once per week; this equates to ZERO disturbance for the massively stressed and overstimulated animal
3. after 3 weeks, put a p/k mouse/rat/hamster into cage at hide box entrance - 90% of the time the food item was gone in the morning, but in the event of another refusal, repeat the above steps to the letter (yes, another 3 weeks waiting period)

I never had a snake refuse more then 3 times before finally starting to feed on it's own. Usually after the first feeding, they became absolutely ravenous! It comes down to your ability to alleviate the stress on the animal through cage setup and patience and diligence on your part. He's made it this far in life, so there's no reason he shouldn't start feeding for you in time.

Good luck!
Billy

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