Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought a baby male 100% pied het from Ralph Davis a couple of weeks ago. It had been feeding on rat pups and had eaten at least 6 times. My question is he has eaten fine for me two times on mouse fuzzies/hoppers but I don't see any poop anywhere in his cage. He looks normal not bloated, he moves around the cage and actually is quite aggressive as it has taken me weeks of handling him for a couple minutes at a time till he has stoped striking at me when I reach in to get him out. He is a very aggressive feeder and grabs the food right away when offered. Ralph told me he feeds every seventh day and a feeding is due but I am afraid to give it to him since I don't see any poo. What should I do? I don't remember this happeneing with my female when she was a baby.
Here are some pics of him.

of his "spot"

Don't worry about him not taking a dump. They don't [bleep] once for every meal.
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www.NEWReptiles.com

for all I know my normal female didn't go every time either but you shell out a bit more money and all of a sudden you start to worry about every poop. Ha ha ha

I think this may help?

Michael Ibanez

I wouldn't soak him.. If the snake has a place to soak himself, fine, but I wouldn't force him to soak.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

If you just got him and he has only had 1-2 small meals there is no reason to soak him.

I would suggest getting him back on rats/rat pups and just keep an eye on him ove the next week or so.
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www.NEWReptiles.com

You mentioned

"It had been feeding on rat pups and had eaten at least 6 times. My question is he has eaten fine for me two times on mouse fuzzies/hoppers"

Rat pups are considerably larger than fuzzie/hopper mice so I would guess he is being underfed and absorbing most of the food content. I have seen this in a couple different cases. One with assist fed babies that are taking smaller food item than normal and less often. Two is with large imports that would only take one or two mice at a time. In both cases once they were eating normal sized meals at regular intervals the started defecating regularly.

If you have only fed him two fuzzies/hopper mice in the last two weeks I wouldn't be concerned, especially since you mentioned you haven't noticed any bloating. I would really suggest either upping the feeding schedule or switching to a larger size prey item.

I will get him larger prey items. He ate the two I gave him ravenously although the hopper mouse I used for his last feeding was pretty big and it took him a while to eat it the one before that was pretty small. Almost pinky sized. I was more worried about feeding him too much for his system to handle and having him regurgitate.

How about any suggestions for the aggression. He strikes like crazy when I open his door to get him out. Especially in the evenings. Not so much during the day. I don't have any other ball python that acts like that. Will more handling calm him down or will it make him worse.
I can't decide whether to name him Damien, Voldemort or Montecore.

>>
>>How about any suggestions for the aggression. He strikes like crazy when I open his door to get him out. Especially in the evenings. Not so much during the day. I don't have any other ball python that acts like that. Will more handling calm him down or will it make him worse.
>>I can't decide whether to name him Damien, Voldemort or Montecore.

Get him back on rat pups weekly and he'll be less likely to hope everything coming his way is food. Regular handling and patience will help, too.
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Ball-Pythons.net

where I am most of the local shops have only mice. Plus even those are a bit scarce since some breeders lost their stock during the hurricanes. Is it just because of the size that you suggest rats? If so what size mouse can I safely use?

From reading other post there is another advantage to feeding rats pups over mice of the same size. The additional bone mass in rats seems to help put weight on the snake faster than the mice.

Personally thought I have never used rat pups, I wait until the snake is large enough to start taking small rats before switching. This may slow the initial growth for the first 6 or 8 months but it has worked well. I start all my regular sized baby balls on hopper mice right after their first shed. After 3 or 4 hoppers I switch them to small/medium mice. After another 3 or 4 feedings I switch them to average size adult mice.

This is on average, I have had some hatchling that were extremely small and needed to take large fuzzies the first couple meals and I have had large hatchlings that can take small adults right after shedding. I try to feed a prey item the same diameter or a little larger than the thickest part of the snake. It is hard to tell from the pictures you posted the overall size of him but I would guess if he was feeding on rat pups he should be able to take a average adult mouse.

George

I will give him bigger mice.

np