Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I use a hair dryer to dry the f/t mice that I feed Reggie (female). Before I brought the mouse into the room one day, I just turned the hair dryer on. She perked up, started flicking her tongue and I could tell that she knew she was getting fed. I then got the mouse blow-dried it and then she ate. Has anyone else had this happen? Are the vibrations of the hair dryer enough to spark a psychological instinct in a ball?

if you went from relatively "quiet" to pretty "noisy" wouldnt you perk up and start looking around? add that to the smell of mouse in the air, and presto, snake gets active, smells food, gets even more active....i know from personal expierience as soon as i start to thaw even a mouse or a rat every snake head in the house is plastered to the front of the cage looking for a tasty morsel (its pretty funny to have 12 faces staring at you and tracking you because youre defrosting one mouse). i gotta say tho, theres nothing cuter than a moluccan python licking her lips and drooling! and for anyone who didnt get that i was kidding, heres your chance to get it!

J
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Jaymz
"got a bowlin ball in my stomache, got a desert in my mouth. figures that my courage would choose to sell out now..."

I didn't have the mouse anywhere near the room when I turned the hair dryer on. I just wanted to know if the snake will tend to have Pavlovian responses whenever I have a hair dryer blowing.

you dont have to be in the same room to smell something, neither do snakes, who might just possibly have better olfactory senses than we do. but having said that. ANY loud noise might cause your ball python to become more active. loud music, yelling, anything...more so if the scent of food is in the air. im not kidding when i say that all of my pythons become more active when i defrost mice, which i do in the kitchen, a far different room than where i keep my pythons. they also become more active if theres an unusually large amount of noise. as for it being a pavlovian response, youre more likely to see that with cage opening and a food response. ball pythons might not pick up on routines as fast as scrubs, i keep both i can easily compare them, but ball pythons do pick up on a routine...glad i dont have a set one, itd be a little much dodging heat seeking head missles..i mean scrub pythons. but, honestly, i doubt it was just the hair dryer it was responsing to. wouldnt you be a little more active, maybe even very active, if you were hungry and could smell something delicious in the air?

J
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Jaymz
"got a bowlin ball in my stomache, got a desert in my mouth. figures that my courage would choose to sell out now..."