Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all, this is my first post here, long time fan of the forums here. I am not a professional keeper. I have been in hobby for twenty years however.
I never had luck with store bought or wild caught Royal Pythons and i am sure im not alone on this. They are very picky eaters.
Over the years, I have made lots of observations as to were exactly there caught in the wild, and found eating....i had come to a point were i wanted to put what i thought i learned into action...and it was a success.
I noticed over the years of watching the balls, that they love to stare above them, almost trans like at lights and electric lines in the ceilings. they do the same to below. they are also nocturnal. i took these known facts and put em into action. i waited till dark, and had places a small one foot square patch of manicured lawn ( completely sterilized first!!) with a bush and a climbing stick to the end of it. i watched my ball python move from the shrubs to the climbing wood, were it stalked its prey from above.... success, two rat pups within moments. i can get my balls to feed every time now, as long as i wait till night time, and allow them to hunt the food from ABOVE! i have another friend who has taken the above approach, i.e. feeding bird scented rat pups from tongs in his rack system, they took the food from directly above them, almost EVERY time! I looked further into this, i found my balls will not feed if the pray is on the same level as them, my only thought to it is that in the wild, anything walking around them, knows it wouldn't be eaten due to it being either toxic or to fast. Any one else ever noticed these behaviors, or maybe willing to help me continue the research, Ball Pythons, Eating from above. Thank you all for you time and responses.

Very interesting. Could you post your exact set-up and your methods (timing, how you assembled your set-up, ANYTHING else you can think of). Pictures would be great.

I'd be willing to give this a try and see if I could replicate your results. I have two picky eaters who I would like to get eating regularly.

Are the snakes you tested this on of both sexes? Any morphs? How about age or size classes? The more closely I can replicate your attempts the more information we would gain.
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Lincoln, NE
0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly
2.0 Normals, 1.0 Thayeri, 0.1 Thayeri X Alterna, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

Hi,

You can count me in too. I would love to see how effective this is personally.

Bill
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2.1 Tripple Het Caramel, Orange Ghost, Genetic Stripe
1.1 Het Lavenders
1.1 Het Caramel Albino
0.1 Het Albino
0.1 Spider Het Albino
0.1 Het Pied
1,1 Pastel Het for Orange Ghost
1.0 Albino
0.1 Spinner
1.1 Super Pastel
0.1 Jungle Pastel
1.0 Pied 50 percent White
0.1 Clown
0.3 Normal
1.1 Kids
0.1 Spouse
1.0 Chocolate Lab

thanks for your interest guys! I will get a full count on my buddies babies, as for me 1.1 normal farm hatched ( still saving to get a lesser plat or Mojave, preferable from Ralph Davis, and always loved the idea of finding a new morph gene from farm hatched wild baby's). will post pics of my tank and feeding arrangement on next feeding. i can tell you that i gave my balls three level ranges to move comfortable to, using a mixed selection of jungle vines by exo Terra, this is a semi natural tank, because of the fact i never got my juveniles that were pet store purchased to eat from even a sterile quarantine style tank. My buddy has a much higher ball python count,think he is up to like 40 now... lol, ill get exacts, but as of today, GREAT NEWS, after posting today, my partner has explained that he has built a stepped feeding/ hiding box for his baby ball racks now that ALL his juveniles are eating from the top of his creation!!! we will have pix of both our experiments! give us a week to hit feeding time again! thanks for your support guys!

ive had similiar observations as well.
i once took in a 3 ft ball as a rescue it had been bitten on the lower jaw and stopped eating for its previous owner.i put it in a sterile environment and treated the wound best i could. after about a month and a half the snake shed out and the wound had healed. so i tried feeding and nothing.
did this for a couple of weeks.
decided i would put it in my bigger cage that was setup for a monitor that i had sold. snake went up into the tree almost instantly and started flicking its tongue like crazy. so i dropped in a mouse and as soon as it walked underneath , snap and gone!
i still have small fake ornamental trees that i use for stubborn balls. it doesnt always work but does work alot.
i have pics on one of my hard drives of a ball eating in the tree ill have to see if i cant dif it out.
adam jeffery
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" a.k.a. farfrumugen "
When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.