Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have one BP, but he doesn't seem interested in eating F/T at all, have had him for a few weeks now and I wanted to know when I should start to worry. Should I try to feed him a live rat to see or what? Could I not be getting the rat warm enough?? Any help would be appreciated, this is my first BP, but i do have cornsnakes, all of which are voracious eaters.....Thanks in advance to anyone that can help

This is my new guy G.T.

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A.J.
0.1.0- Fiancee- Emily (LOL!)
1.0.0- Amel Motley Corn- Valentine (R.I.P 5/20/05)
0.1.0- Snow Corn- Artica
1.0.0- Normal Corn- Ember
1.0.0- Ball Python- G.T.
1.0.0- Bearded Dragon- Stang
2.0.0- Chihuahua- Nightro, Parker
1.2.0- Cats- Mollie, Sammie, Clowie
0.0.12- Fish- All Unnamed

Don't worry about it. Every other post on this site is about problem feeders. As long as your temps/hum etc... are good then your snake will most likely come around. If awhile goes by and everything is good as far as housing, you may need to try live, but I really wouldn't worry about it right now, your snake looks healthy. -Joe D
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0.1 Green Iguana (Sisco)
0.1 Rose Hair T (Sweets)
1.1.4 Hairless Rats (Socrates, The Three Stooges and Left Eye)
3.2 Ball Pythons (Stratos, She-Ra, Skeletor(0.1 oops on the name!), Sy-Cloone, Stinkor)
1.0 Striped Cal. King (Snuggles)

I got him then had a really bad financial situation come up, i am almost out of so i don't have anything to check the hum, is there any "mcgyver" trick to check that, and just to make sure waht are the temp and hum ranges supposed to be?
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A.J.
0.1.0- Fiancee- Emily (LOL!)
1.0.0- Amel Motley Corn- Valentine (R.I.P 5/20/05)
0.1.0- Snow Corn- Artica
1.0.0- Normal Corn- Ember
1.0.0- Ball Python- G.T.
1.0.0- Bearded Dragon- Stang
2.0.0- Chihuahua- Nightro, Parker
1.2.0- Cats- Mollie, Sammie, Clowie
0.0.12- Fish- All Unnamed

I don't know how to check the humidity without a humidity gauge, but they are pretty cheap at PETCO for an analog gauge that will give you a basic idea of what your humidity is, although it won't be 100% accurate it will help. As for what the temps should be, here is a pretty good care sheet that I found searching yahoo.com: http://www.acreptiles.com/ball_python_care.htm
Hope this helps, and as I said, don't worry about it as long as your bp looks healthy and doesn't lose too much weight (I believe more than 10% weight loss is too much but I may be wrong). -Joe D.

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0.1 Green Iguana (Sisco)
0.1 Rose Hair T (Sweets)
1.1.4 Hairless Rats (Socrates, The Three Stooges and Left Eye)
3.2 Ball Pythons (Stratos, She-Ra, Skeletor(0.1 oops on the name!), Sy-Cloone, Stinkor)
1.0 Striped Cal. King (Snuggles)

You really don't need a humidity gauge. You can just spray the cage every couple of days if you want, but even that is probably not needed unless your ambient humidity is very low. If you do want to buy one, even most cheap digital thermometers have one on it. You can get one of these at walmart for $7-$8
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1.2 Het Pied
1.1 Het Lavender Albino
1.1 Het Albino
0.7 Normals
1.0 50% Het lav albino

You might want to spray the cage everyday, not every couple of days, especially if you are in a dry part of the country or have the heat on in your house. Also, humidity is not really a huge factor when it comes to feeding a bp, but it is important for the health of the animal, so you probably do want some type of humididty gauge. -Joe D.
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0.1 Green Iguana (Sisco)
0.1 Rose Hair T (Sweets)
1.1.4 Hairless Rats (Socrates, The Three Stooges and Left Eye)
3.2 Ball Pythons (Stratos, She-Ra, Skeletor(0.1 oops on the name!), Sy-Cloone, Stinkor)
1.0 Striped Cal. King (Snuggles)

I appreciate the help you all have given me, and I will definately do something. Also to answer some of the questions you all asked, he does have a hide, its about a 12 inch diameter dome with a cutout, the bedding is coconut bark, and i have been doing all i can to keep it warm enough and humid enough, unfortunately having just left my gf left me strapped for some extra money to get the cages i wanted, y'know them nice ones that have all the stuff built in it for cords and stuff, the expensive ones i would have gotten had I had that much extra cash at the time
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A.J.
0.1.0- Fiancee- Emily (LOL!)
1.0.0- Amel Motley Corn- Valentine (R.I.P 5/20/05)
0.1.0- Snow Corn- Artica
1.0.0- Normal Corn- Ember
1.0.0- Ball Python- G.T.
1.0.0- Bearded Dragon- Stang
2.0.0- Chihuahua- Nightro, Parker
1.2.0- Cats- Mollie, Sammie, Clowie
0.0.12- Fish- All Unnamed

what substrate are you using to keep your ball on. from the pic you posted it looked like cedar. i dont believe cedar is very good for them.i might be wrong but that is waht it looks like in the pic. also do you have any hides in the tank for your guy to go into. you definatly need to find out what the air temps are in the tank. glass tanks arent the best to keep them in because it is to hard to keep temps regulated and humidity tends to drop quickly due to the open top. i dont spray my snakes unles they are in shed. i find that the do just fine with my ambient room humidity. i also live in florida so humidity really isnt an issue. what was the snake eating before you got him. where did you get him. was he a pet store animal or from a local breeder. i sometimes will have luck getting one to just take f/t but most of the time they need a few live meals to build a good strong feed response then i switch over to the f/t. sometimes i have trouble getting them to eat rats and i have to start them out on live mice then swithch to live rats then to f/t rats. sorry for the long response. do you have a book on ball pythons or have you looked up any care sheet info on them. you can get some great advise from them.

Try feeding him whatever he was eating prior to you getting him. Can you contact the breeder/petstore to find out how they were feeding him?

Temps, and all that need to be appropriate, as it's aready been explained. Do you have a hide for him - I don't see one in the cage - tho I realize there is probably another half a cage not pictured. Does he stay in it most of the time, does he come out and appear to be hunting for food at night? There are some balls that are very sensitive to being moved either from one cage to another or shipping, etc. it will throw off thier eating - a couple of weeks is not a problem, a couple of months may be cause for concern.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

6.42.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.1 Lizard of unknown origin