Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I don't know how many of you remember my posts about my pinstripe, but man she's being a problem for me. All of my other snakes are garbage desposals. But this pinstripe... It just doesn't seem like I can please her. I tried frozen thawed and had no success for a month. Then she went off and on for a few months. I would like to get her up to weight to breed in November so I decided to cut the crap and give up on F/T. So I started feeding live. She went two weeks in a row and hasn't eaten for about three weeks now. I breed a small colony of rats, but I freeze them. I have a rat that I kept for her, but now after a few weeks without feeding I think the rat is too big and intimidating her. So I put the rat in her cage and let them be for a few hours. I know this isn't a great practice because the rat can injure the snake, but you get mixed opinions. Those who are into live feeding say rats are gentle and don't hurt the snakes. Either way I don't have hours to watch her while the rat tears up her bedding and she watches. Either way the rats been in there for about an hour and a half right now and she hasn't eaten. Actually she's moved to her hide. Anyway I think the problem might be that this rat is too big for her. Not as far as too be for her to eat, he's just barely bigger around that she is if not the same size, but I think he's big enough to where he's intimidating her. That's the back story now to the question

I have a group of rats that I'm holding back for future breeding that are about 1 stage smaller than this rat. I would like to try and use one of them and I'll just hold this rat back for breeding. My question is should I give her time to settle down before I put the smaller rat in there or would it be ok to try the smaller rat right after I pull the larger rat?

All opinions greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

you just feed a ball python what it will eat. I have never had one that would not eat a live mouse or rat of some size at some point. I do not feed asf's, gerbils or anything else. at some point every snake that is eating will eat again. you may want to examine your temps and humidity to see if you need to adjust something else to solve the problem.
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Evan Stahl Reptiles
www.evanstahl.com

That's what I'm trying to do, but she's really inconsistent. She's just not eating. The breeder said she was on live rats so that's what I've tried. My temps and humidty should be good everything else in the rack system is a dumpster at 88 hot 81 to 82 cold and 50-60% humidity day to day. It's just this one ball python. She is an older ball python that I bought at 800g. Now she's about 975g, but it was a hard earned 175g in 5 months. I'm not being stubborn about what I feed her I just can't figure out what it's going to take to get her to eat weekly.

To answer your original question, I'd wait and let her settle down for a few days then try the smaller rat. If she's already stressed out by the larger rat, then she's pretty shut down any feeding response she would have had for the day.
On a side note, I've had success getting some of my picky eaters to eat much smaller prey items for a few weeks then slowly bumping them up from there. If she's 975g I'd try putting a large pup or small/med weanling rat in with her late at night and seeing if that helps.
Let us know how it goes!
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Valley Herpetoculture
www.valleyherps.webs.com

Will do. At this point though I'm wondering if I should try mice for a little bit. An adult mouse would probably be perfect size. I'm having quite a difficult time finding appropriate size rats around here. And I wont have anything out of my colony for about 2 and a half weeks now.

with 2 exceptions in my collection...all my problem feeders will eat 1 maybe 2 ASF's before they go back to Regular rats...a mouse could also tigger a feeding response...smaller rats do the trick sometimes...but...i will add....how important is this snake ...i had a het clown that was so difficult to get her eating...at 900 grams....i said to hell with it...started feeding ASF's strictly....she grew to 1800 grams in like 4 months...I produced my 1st clown last year...a Female...that is now feeding on rat pups...
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Michael Enriquez

Yeah you brought up a pretty good point. The snake itself isn't overly valuable to me in the sense of sentimental value. Price wise I guess it's pretty valuable looking at the price I paid for her. I paid good money for her because she was a well started female and my plans were to breeder her this upcoming november as my first breeding. If I can't breed her this year she was relatively a $500 waste which would be the difference between her and what I could have bought a hatchling for. Otherwise I could have just waited another year for my other pairings to be of age and saved the money. As time goes on I'm thinking that would have been my best bet because I'm seriously doubting I'll get her up to weight in time.

None the less to answer your question. I do t know if value is the issue with me and African Soft Furs. Where I live African soft furs are hard to come by. When I started my rat colony I didn't want to use ASFs because when it came time to restock my colony I didn't want to deal with having to find a breeder for them. As for purchasing individual ASFs for this particular snake. I really don't want to have to do that, again mostly because of the inability to find them. Lastly my big fear of using ASFs to jump start her is that I've read that when you feed a ball python one they can be extremely hard to get off of them because it is there natural food. I'm trying to set myself up to where I won't end up having animals to where I have to find them special food. Especially just for 1 animal so I guess I'm going to exhaust every other possibility first. Hopefully I can try a large mouse next week and have a little bit of luck.

offer her a large live mouse
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Evan Stahl Reptiles
www.evanstahl.com

The large live mouse should do the trick. I got this tip from a local breeder near me. you may have to stock up on large mice if she takes to it, but if you want to breed her it will be well worth it. I had a het pied female and a ruppels pastel female that are way behind in weight compared to females from the same year or even the year after but at least they are eating now. and the pastel will occasionally take a med rat now.

I agree with trying a large mouse, but also try feeding at night with lights dimmed. I find my best feeding success occurs between 9-11 PM. Balls are nocturnal so it makes perfect sense.

Some balls are just difficult feeders and will always be difficult feeders. I have a het pied female that will only eat ASF's, Hampsters or Gerbals, and occasionally a mouse. But, I stuck with her and she produced 2 pieds for me this year. Try the mouse first, and if that doesn't work, just be patient.

The thing to remember with balls is, feed them as much as they will eat when they want it because you never know when they will stop feeding again.

It won't hurt to put a male with her come November even if she
isn't quite up to 1200 grams. I've found that some females will start pounding food around that time in order to get themselves up to size.

Even if you try breeding her a little smaller, and she doesn't end up producing, you really havn't lost much because she will probably go off of feed during the breeding season anyways. A large portion of my growouts go off feed in the winter months even though I havn't lowered their temps or attempted to breed them.

Good luck, I understand how frustrating it can be...
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Reid Begnoche
http://www.tallgrassreptiles.com
tallgrassreptiles@gmail.com

See that's what I've always believed. But I don't mention it much because there seems to be a lot of people on here who feel differently. I've heard to never think about breeding a female until she's atleast 1600grams and 3 years old. The age thing is easy in nature, since snakes have to get their licence at the age of 2, the female could just pull her wallet out and show the male her ID showing her birthdate. But for the weight thing there's no way the guys can expect the girls to carry a scale around with them. Anyway all joking aside it just seems to keep climbing and climbing, actually age also. When I first started reading about breeding I read 1 year and 400g on a male and 2 years and 1200g on a female. Then it was 1 year 600 grams on a male and 2.5 years and 1400g on a female. But lately it seems like when the questions asked the answer is 1 year and 650g on a male and no less than 3 years and 1600g on a female. I just don't understand why it would change. Actually though this is on of my most concerning questions. What's the penalty for attempting breeding to early? No one has ever answered this directly they just make it sound like you don't care about your animal if you do... So what happens? Does it kill the female? Does she just slug out? Does it stunt her like with rats and she'll constantly have small clutches? or Does she just not breed that year and you try again next year? Now if she just looks way to small to pass the eggs that's a different story, but if she looks big enough and healthy enough I just don't understand what the issue could be regardless of weight or age. I could be wrong and I understand and accept that, but I'd like a little more of an explination than,,, well if you care about your animals you'll wait.