My ball python has always been very shy about eating when someone is watching. I've typically had to turn off the lights and leave the room. In recent months, she's become a little bolder. On March 4, I fed her a rat and had time to take a picture before she dragged the thing back into her hide. That picture is shown here. One funny thing about the picture is the way one side of her jaw is bent open as she grasps the rat. One strange thing is that I can't identify the gray object that appears to be in her mouth.

I've changed my feeding procedure since taking this picture. I'm now putting her in a small paper bag, leaving the paper bag in the cage, and dangling the rat in the entrance to the bag. She hit the rat and retreat into the bag. This technique keeps the rat from touching the substrate. The week after this picture was taken, she struck but left the rat on the ground outside her hide. She seemed interested but apprehensive. I picked up the rat to find his back covered in substrate, and I decided to go back to feeding with something other than substrate under the snake. The paper bag technique allows me to leave her in the cage. I used this technique tonight, and she crawled out of the bag by herself within half an hour to forty-five minutes of eating. She's back in the coconut hide now.

The health chart shows that she's reached 170 grams for at least this weighing. I hope that she'll be bigger next week. I think two defecations within eight days is good news. I have another 20 gram rat that I want to give her. I have another 20 gram rat and one that weighs about 25 grams. When she takes those, I'm going to try to find something a little bigger. Again, the weights associated with sheds and defecation are not the weights of the sheds or defecation. I simply picked a number in order to show the date of each event on the chart. The light gray defecation dates represent my finding feces and not knowing exactly when she defecated.

As always, I'd be interested in hearing comments or advice.

Bill

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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.