Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi my name is Jo i have recently bought an adult preowned royal python who seems to have a problem swallowing food.he has not eaten for about 6 weeks i am not too concerned about this ,but on the last two occasions of trying to feed him he has seemed interested int he gerbil i left it in his hide overnight and it looks as if the gerbil has been half eaten or constricted/squashed and there iwas a small pool of blood near the gerbil.I thought i would try something smaller so tried a mouse but the same thing happened.Any ideas anyone.
I am new to snakes so any advice would be very welcome
Cheers Jo

Can you find out what the previous owner was feeding him .... Royal pythons will often prefer one kind of food item and then want to stick with that. Sounds like he is killing the food but not eating it. Couple of suggestions;

- See that he is warm enough to feed - cool Royal pythons go off their food.
- Ensure he has a good hide box.
- See nothing is disturbing him while he is eating.
- Try another food type.
- Try switching the substrate, I use Cypress mulch for all my adult Royal pythons ... and keep part of the cage moist ... helps with shedding as well.
- Get a vet to check him out ... he may have RI and need to be medicated.
- Lastly be VERY CAREFUL of leaving a live rodent in the cage with a snake overnight ... always see the rodent has something to eat or else it can kill or harm the snake ... it happens all the time.

Hope this helps.

Many thanks for your reply.Just to let you know that i tried again with a white mouse (pre killed, i havent and wouldnt use live prey)and i put it in a a large tupperware box and low and behold he ate it.What a relief !! He is now in the middle of shedding so dont think he will want to eat again untill after that.I know its quite hard to say but roughly how often should i feed him ,I was thinking about every 10-14 days with say 4 mice at a time or one gerbil/rat if he will take them .He was previously fed with gerbil.
cheers Jo