Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello. I have 2 Ball Pythons. One is a 3'11" 5 year-old Female, who was adopted 2.5 years ago. The other is a 3'4" 2.5 year-old Male that I purchased as a baby. When my Male Ball Python was a baby, he would just eat like crazy and grew very quickly to a length of 3' by 1.5 years of age. Over the last year, his feeding behavior totally changed. He went off feed for 7 months and lately has only eaten scarcely. He is now 3'4" and I wonder if he still has hope of being over 4' someday. The thing is that I know that he would be over 4' if he would just eat more! Whenever he has eaten lately, he will eat 3 or 4 meals in a row, shed, and then just goes off feed again for a month.

1) Is there any method that I can use to get him to eat more before this winter comes?

2) My main question: Do Ball Pythons just eat less because they live longer than most other snakes, therefore taking longer to reach their adult size-range?

i feel it's just how he's growing...all individual snakes are different so he may just be growing slower...also bp's can be really picky about eating & sometimes radomly go months with out being hungry....as far as winter you can try to kep him at summer temps year round but he still may take notice to it being the winter time of year & decide to go off feed...when you feed try a bigger meal this way if he's only eating a lil he'll be getting more food in....