Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a new baby girl (first shed was 10 days ago) and can't get her interested in eating. So far I've only tried f/t (that's what my other bp eats), but she either ignores it or pulls away from it. I don't like feeding live, but my local shop recommends trying a live hopper to see if she'll take it. Temps, humidity, etc. are good. Any suggestions?

I'd post a picture, but I don't know how. (No flames, please...)

Thanks!!!

Here's a picture...

Here's a pic of my male...this one has no problems with dinner!

she is a good size, i wouldnt worry about it for now, just keep giving her the opportunity to eat, sometimes what helps is heating up the mouse ALOT, like not panfried or anything like that, just maybe leave it longer to heat up

hope this helps

Your going to have to try live. You could continue to try F/T, and it might work, but it also might just scare it away from eating anything.

The heating method might work, but with newborns it's best to get a few meals in them and then try frozen thawed if they don't eat at first.

Leave it alone for 24 hours, and then put a fuzzy or hopper mouse in there and see what happens overnight. It might want a rat pup or gerbil fuzzy, but try mice for now.

If this doesn't work after about a week, we'll have to teach you how to assist feed. Don't worry about that for now though. Good luck.

Neil's right, try live to start. It will at least get some food in him. Sometimes the live action is neeed to stimulate them. As that becomes easy you can try switching over.

quig

Live hopper mice usually do the trick to get them started feeding. For the second meal I would try rat pinks to get them switched as as soon as possible. Most of my babies will be eating FT rat pinks by their fifth meal. One year when I first bought a lot of babies I tried starting them all on FT rat pinks and for the most part it worked out good. I had to assist feed about 25% of them their first meal but after that they did pretty well.

Please trust me and do not feed babies gerbils to start. Ball pythons are very stubborn at picking a food source that they like and sticking to it. I fed babies gerbils because I bred them and now I have snakes that will eat 4-5 gerbils in a meal and won't touch anything else.

Only try Gerbils if nothing else works. Your out of luck if you are in Cali, I don't think you can have them there.

One of the most expensive snakes in the world will only eat Gerbils. Sorry, I can't name what it is for privacy reasons. I will say he was really sweating it out until he tried a Gerbil when it was a baby though.

You may also want to give it a hide box if it doesn't have one. The only problem with hide boxes is that once you give them one, they tend to always want one. This can be a problem when selling your snakes, since the person you sell it to might not use one and then complain that you sold them a problem feeder.

I agree gerbils are a good last resort (or at least gerbil scenting), but for a hatchling I would almost rather go with a couple of assit feeds before going to gerbils, just because it's so hard to get them to switch foods. And being from CA I don't even look at (purchasing) a snake that has been fed gerbils.

I also agree on the hide box thing - God I hate those that I get that will only feed if they are in their hides. And it seems to me that they are my "problem" feeders, but I guess they can't all be garbage disposals. LOL

Whatever works right!
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Tosha

"Of course, this is just my opinion...and I believe I am God." -- Christopher Bianco

8.15.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and currently un-named)
1.0.0 Angolan Python
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.3 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

I agree with what has been said here, but I have a question of my own in relation to feeding gerbils. Am I the only one on the planet that hasn't had a problem switching?? Mine seem to be more size oriented than species oriented. They both have eaten gerbils, rats, hamsters and mice. As long as they are "the right size" and warm blooded they don't seem to care what they look like . Mine must TRUELY be garbage disposals LOL.

Quig

I have had pretty good luck switching from hamsters to rats, by just using a little bit of hamster bedding and gradually not using any at all. She seems to eat rats just fine now. next step is to get her eating them prekilled, I hate throwing live rats in with her, but better than hamsters like her previous owner was doing.

The most important thing about feeding live is to monitor the process from the time you drop it in till it gets snatched. Most rodents, particularly the males of the species will start nipping at the snake eventually. You must be there to prevent this. In general, if the snake isn't to head shy and the critters don't spook it, I will leave the prey item in for about half an hour. That's enough time to know if the snake is actually hungry. If the prey isn't taken in this amount of time, remove it and try again in a couple days. If said snake is in fact hungry the critter won't last 5 minutes on the floor before it starts gettin' a hug hope his helps.

Quig

here's what worked for me. I have a notorious male who would NOT eat for his former owner. he now eats for me every time.
I put him in a rubbermaid type setup in a low-traffic area of my house. I ignored him completely for a month, only opening his cage to change his water every few days anf check on his temps from time to time. he had the ability to get completely comfortable in his surroundings.
I would advise against handling until he is eating regularly.
Hope this helps!
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4.1 Ball pythons
1.0 Boa Constrictor Imperator
0.1 albino Cranwell's horned frog
1.1 breeding Clawed frogs
1.0 black kittycat
3.1 Oscar cichlids
Also have fancy goldfish, african cichlids, and rats. And 1 Paint horse mare

Wow! What a great response...thanks for all the tips! I picked up a live fuzzy today and I'll try it this evening. This is the first "baby" I've had, so it's frustrating not getting her to eat compared to my male "garbage disposal." Thanks again for all the help!!!!