Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all,
My year and 3/4s male Ball has suddenly gotten very fickle. I've had him on f/t mice for at least a year, and usually he's been a pretty good eater. But now all of a sudden, since winter's started to set in, he hasn't been eating. I've heard that they can go into a more dormant state when the cold weather comes around (I'm in Michigan so there's a definite drop in temperature). But he is still extremely active, crawling all over the cage. It's going on two weeks and I'm a little concerned, because if he's stopped eating for the winter I don't think he's nearly fat enough to do something like that since he's remaining so active. Any insight would be appreciated.
Many Thanks,
Benjamin

p.s. One other thing, I normally give him regular white mice, but the last two in my freezer bag are dark brown/black. Do snakes develop a color preference? My snake isn't a racist is he?

well it could just be he wants to breed and his mind is on one thing, like most of us men, but i also have one BP that will only eat white rats, which can be a pain to find

Have you considered feeding your snake a live mouse? For a long time my snake was only eating frozen mice, but she stopped eating when she got a respiratory infection. Even after she got better she wouldn't eat for me, so one day I fed her a live mouse and now that's all she eats.

They definitely do change during breeding season.

I can even handle my Male Emerald Tree Boa and my usually very nippy Biak Green Tree Python Male now. Normally, that would be very stupid to do! The hit anything that moves normally, and they have BIG teeth. Now they are docile as puppies. They have been that way for about a month now. My male ball python isn't eating either.

A lot of reptiles do this, and has even been speculated that it may prevent females from getting eaten by males during the breeding season. Especially in snakes that are known as regular snake eaters, like kingsnakes for instance.

Rodney

Thanks for all your imput.
He finally ate last night. I tried giving him a white one, and at first he was doing that stupid thing where he'll put his nose right up to and then start to slide against it off into another direction and totally ignore it. So I just set it on top of his half-log hide box with the head hanging off of the edge and went to brush my teeth. When I came back he had it almost all the way down already! So maybe it's the weather, maybe he only likes white ones, the point is he ate, so thanks for your help.