I'm sure there's a ton of posts about ball python feeding issues but I'm new to ball python care so please bare with me. I got my snake from a guy on craigslist back and December. The man had been feeding him live rats and after doing some research I decided I want to try and switch him to F/T rats. The first time I fed him was right after I got him so I fed him a live rat just to make sure he was settled in enough to eat. He took it just fine. A week or two later I attempted to feed him a live mouse to be followed by a pre-killed, he was interested in neither. He continued to refuse both live and dead prey for a couple weeks, when finally I read that putting the snake a brown paper bag overnight with a thawed rodent can work, this did the trick! Since then my snake has refused to eat for weeks to months at a time but will then eventually take a F/T mouse in the bag over night.



The problems are

A) I do not think one frozen mouse every 2 weeks to a month is enough for my python.

B) I have been wasting a lot of frozen mice by offering them every week and having them refused 2/3 of the time. I hate wasting and it's not exactly cheap.



What is the best way to try and fix this? Should I give up on F/T and start offering live again (which I would really rather not do) or should I stick it out and hope he gets less finicky.



Some details on my snake:

He's around 7 years old, don't know a lot about his history since he came from craigslist. I keep the cool side of his tank around 70-73, the warm side around 80-85. He has a large water bowl at one end providing humidity and i mist the tank around once every other day. He also has a large hide that he spends a lot of time in. The last time I offered a rat was last night, which was 3-4 days after he shed so I assumed he would be ready to eat.



Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Like I said, I'm new to this and I really want to give this guy a good home since he came from not the best situation.

[ Show Entire Thread ]