Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know that balls fast every now and then... just because they feel like it and their is nothing a breeder really can or should do but go nuts about it. With that said, at what point does a breeder simply call it a fast and brush it off or simply say we need to get some help here? I know that VPI says in their book on Ball pythons that a happy and healthy ball python will eat eventually, and I also personally have seen my own super pastel male got 11 months with out eating he was really thin but simply would not eat, and then one day he decided hay lets eat and BAM it was on. But I also know that there are few cases where balls will starve themselves, and no one wants their snakes to die no matter if it is a normal or a million dollar snake.

Matt

Long answer:
I had this issue with my pied and het pied balls. Neither wanted to eat anything ever. I tried different sizes, species, sexes, colors, times of day, methods of offering, warm/cold, f/t, you name it. After running out of options I was willing to persue (I refused to offer gerbils or other non-rat/mouse/asf options) I brushed it off as a fast and just started monitoring weight and condition.

I would weigh them with every shed or every 3 weeks, whatever came first. Neither of them lost much weight (there wasn't much there to start with) so at the end of 9 months of little to no eating the most lost was 120 grams on the larger snake. Condition was good and the snake still behaved alertly and responded to shadows and stroking the way you would expect.

Short answer: If you have triple checked all of your environmental conditions and toyed with changing them AND If you have exausted all of the prey item options you are willing to offer = It is time to just wait them out and keep an eye on their health.
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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
2.1 Normals, 1.0 Thayeri, 0.1 Thayeri X Alterna, 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband