I got 3 cbb young ball pythons at a herp show on July 22, each of them under 100 grams. Of the 1.2, the male has eaten twice now on f/t fuzzies but neither female has taken food since I've had them. One, a pastel, had eaten (live) before I got her and the other hadn't had her first meal yet. Last night I tried live crawler mice for each female with no luck.
The pastel is very shy/aggressive and spends most of her time hiding. She will strike f/t mice if I move them a little with tongs, but quickly releases and retreats from them afterwards (and shows no interest when they're left with her overnight). With the live fuzzy last night, she started hissing loudly when it got near her and seemed very stressed by its presence, but never showed interest in eating it.
The other female (a normal) is much more outgoing. Any time I open the lid to her enclosure, she comes out of her hide and starts exploring/investigating which I think is pretty cool given the shy nature of most juvie BPs. However, she has yet to take her first meal and I know she's 3 weeks old at the very least. In her case, she crawls right over top of mice whether they're live or thawed, and just doesn't seem interested in them at all.
All 3 are set up in a nearly identical manner in small rubbermaids with thermal gradients provided by undertank heat, good hides, etc. I'm new to ball pythons, but I've kept enough snakes to design a proper setup and I don't think the problem could be in their captive conditions since the male is eating so well.
As different as the personalities of my pastel and my normal are, I'm guessing one solution won't work for both of them. I really thought using live mice would get a better response, but if anything it just further stressed my pastel. I'm running out of ideas here, so at this point I guess I'll just keep trying a thawed mouse every week and hope they eventually take interest. However, if anyone has other suggestions, it would really put my mind at ease to get some food into them soon. Thanks.
P.S. I'm well aware of the issues with CH balls, but I never thought I'd have so much trouble feeding CB offspring. It's starting to give me second thoughts about breeding them now since I'd hate to go through this with half a dozen or so hatchling morphs. Is it fairly common to have issues getting a hatchling BP to start eating or am I just having some bad luck?
