Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all,
Unfortunatley I think now I'm gonna have to ask this oh-so-common ball python question: why do I do about him not eating? I tried to postpone this for as long as possible but it's been 3 weeks now, and still no-go, so i'm worried about his health. When I first got him I fed him a mouse no problem, i put it in the cage and he ate it almost immediatley. Now, three weeks later, I've tried mice of different sizes, and I even dipped one in chicken broth as was suggested somewhere at some time. I dangled one in front of his hide box to try and make it seem more active (i only feed dead mice that i've warmed up) and he struck at it, but prbly only because a dancing mouse outside his hide box posed a threat, still didn't eat it. He'll hover over it or sniff it for a bit, but then head back inside and ignore the mouse. The only difference between that first mouse and all of these is that when I fed him for the first time i'd never taken him out of his cage to be handled, now however I've handled him quite a bit, is it a fear thing? That perhaps he thinks now there's this big thing that's gonna mess w/ him if he dares eat? I know they can go a *long* time without eating, but that doesn't stop me from getting worried. I've done research and have read *alot* of different ways to get a ball python to eat but what are your suggestions? I just wanna see the little guy eat...

Thanks much,
-Eli

Tell us about how he is housed.
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Ryan Farris

it might be worth it to try him on a live mouse. i had the same problem, and the second i gave him a live mouse, he scarfed the thing.

I recently had a male blonde go off feed for nearly 2 months. He's started eating again after I got him to feed on a live mouse.
Jeremy

Unfortunatly as a former employee of a pet shop that would buy the cheapest balls they could find I've dealt with more non-eaters than I can count. I talked to a vet who takes care of a zoo's animals. What he told me was for 6 weeks present a live mouse and see if he ate. After 6 weeks of not eating it was time to "prime the pump" by force feeding. My own varation of this is to each week give the snake a chance to eat on its own. If, after 6 wks it doesn't, then I force it for 2 wks. After that each week I put the F/T mouse in its mouth then put it down and give it a chance to swallow on its own. I may have to start the mouse several times or completely force it. The next week I do the same thing. Sooner or later it will swallow on its own. Soon after it eats on its own. I've never lost a python to not eating and knock on wood I won't. I don't Know it all as my post for help shows so I would appreciate any comments anybody might have on this method.

The other replies you've recieved may be right also, but looking at this from a different angle I think you answered your own question in your post.

I assume (yeah, I know I shouldn't assume anything) that you bought your snake from a pet store. Now, everyone and their grandma has an opinion about petstore snakes (so we won't go there), but the fact is, if you did buy your ball from a pet store he most likely wasn't handled very much.

You said you fed him soon after bringing him home and then began handling him after that. I assume you waited a day or two after feeding him to hold him, but for right now, I would suggest just letting him be.

Don't handle him at all (unless necessary) for a week or two. He is most likely stressed out from the move to a new environment and may need more time to settle in.

If you choose to feed prekilled or frozen thawed mice there is nothing wrong with that, but remember the place you bought him from most likely fed live mice (or rats) to save time. You will have to be patient and (I can't stress this enough) wait him out. He will feed when he is hungry enough...to date I haven't heard of a ball python starving themselves to death (not a healthy one at least).

Some tips:

- make sure the prey is warm enough
- try switching him to prekilled rodents first, after he accepts these on a fairly regular basis switch to frozen thawed
- purchase a pair of hemostats (12-18 inches) this will prevent you from getting tagged (bit) and will make the mouse's heat signature easier for your ball to locate
- make sure your cage/rack/enclosure is set up properly (there are plenty of care sheets out there so I won't go into detail)
- make sure your cage/rack/enclosure is not too big (this is a big mistake plenty of first time owners get themselves into, their reasoning being: "I can save some money if I purchase a tank big enough for an adult" The problem with this thinking is that a neonate or juvenile ball may be stressed out by all that "open space". If your tank is big enough for an adult you can make your ball feel more comfortable in a few simple ways: buy a smaller enclosure, add more hides, or add plenty of cover such as fake or potted plants.

As the snake grows you can remove the cover a little at a time until both you and him are "happy". The best herp related quote I've ever heard is this:

"A hidden herp is a happy herp."

Good luck and keep us posted.

I've read several times about young snakes needing to be kept in smaller containers because they feel too "exposed" in big containers. However, a ball python in the wild is going to be in as big a "container" as one can imagine. In the wild, the baby ball has all of Africa in which to crawl. Why is confining him to a 48x13x20 cage more stressful than confining him to a 30x12x13 cage? I'm not arguing. I just wonder whether anyone knows why the smaller cage works better.

Bill

If you really don't want to feed live, you might try putting a live mouse in with him to stimulate his feeding response.

Take a long pair of hemostats and move the live mouse out of his reach each time you feel he is getting ready to strike.

Get him really worked up with several attempts, then when he is about to strike the live mouse have a F/T heated one ready to go and stick it in front of the live one.

You usually can get them to hit the F/T prey and take it this way. This has been my experience anyhow.

Alan

Have you tried a smaller hide?

Just asking, cause I got a ball a few months ago that would not eat. After posting here and getting a few ideas, I posted somewhere else, and was told to try a smaller hide, I did, he ate, and has eaten every time since then, he has even started to take PK.

I thought the hide I had for him was good, but buy makeing it just a little smaller he started to eat like a burm, anything, anytime!!!

Hope that helps,
Good luck!!

Hey all again,
Thanks for all the quick good responses. I've attached (or tried two) two pictures, one is of his enclosure (it's a 20gallon tall tank, the heat pad is on the left side near the base of the tree-thing) and the second is of my room. The second I think's important because again, I live in a college dorm and you can see they house us like chickens, which has gotta be somewhat stressfull for him 'cause my chair's always moving in front of him and i'm walking past. So here's my plan as derived from what you all have said, tell me if you think it sounds good:

I'm going to leave him alone for another day or two, just fill his water dish is all. Then I'll offer him a live mouse (maybe here would be a good place to say "no!" because i'm a bit anxious about giving him one as i don't want him to get hurt and he's still quite young, but it seems most of you have said it's a good way to get them to eat). If that's still a no-go (he's afraid of it / doesn't want to come out still) or if i can't find a place that sells live feeder mice I'll get him a smaller enclosure. It is a bit big for him as you can see in the pic and i've blacked off the back so he sees only one enterance, so if you all think that's a major factor I'll change that. Not sure where I can find surgical tongs like those referenced to simulate live prey, any suggestions there would be appreciated. And for that matter any hints / suggestions at all for a newbie like me would be appreciated as well.

As a sidenote, yes I did get him at the local pet store, i know i know, i did alota reseach ahead of time and would loved to have gotten a raised in captivity one but i could only find them online and on a college kid's salary of negative-money they were way too expensive for me...

Thanks alot again to everyone for reading and responding to my long and rambling posts.

-Eli

(may have to follow the links if it only posts one image, sorry)
www.rpi.edu/~boceke/one.jpg
www.rpi.edu/~boceke/two.jpg

Holey schmoley thats a big WIDE OPEN cage for a little bitty guy!!!!

But wait, don't go buying yourself a new tank just yet. You need to get more hides. He needs a hide on the cool side, and a hide on the warm side. (what are your temperatures by the way? I don't see any thermometers in there) Cover three sides of the tank with construction paper. Brown or black if you can get it. I would also suggest a woodchip type substrate that he can burrow in if he chooses, and some silk plants for hiding in. If you want to keep the place clean, then put shredded newspaper in there at the very least.

I think you got carried away by all the people who worry about every little thing that can kill their snake. IE the people who think a single woodchip will cause impaction, and every live mouse will chew the hide off every baby snake. Feeding live isn't the end of the world, and neither is feeding on a woodchip substrate. You can always change it back later when he's bigger and more comfortable. Think of it this way, he has 6 months to eat, but if he eats, you have his entire life to teach him to eat in another enclosure, be comfortable in an open enclosure, or eat frozen thawed.

Ball pythons are notoriously shy snakes. They live in burrows underground, and stalk their prey by waiting for them to walk by their favorite hiding spots. You need to approximate this lifestyle to the best of your ability to make him comfortable enough to come out of his hiding spot.

Baby snakes are food for tons of other animals, and THEY KNOW IT! They will not come out of hiding if they feel vulnerable, and they certainly won't make themselves vulnerable by trying to eat. Snakes are very vulnerable when swallowing prey, and they know that too.

Hey,
Thanks! Ok, i'll put black construction paper that I have on 3 sides and I'll buy 2 more hides so I'll have one on the cold, one on the warm, and one in between. He isn't *that* small right? He's a little over a foot and a half long, what is their normal hatchling size? And at that size how long do you think he is? I'll try feeding him a live mouse this saturday (2 days from today) and not disturb him until then. I'll also change the substrate to woodchips, I heard some kinds are toxic and that it's more of a pain to clean woodchips vs paper towels but again you're right, prbly just totally paranoid because of all the internet documentation I read before getting him (big warning about anything and everything when it comes to rasing balls).

Thanks again, and any more responses / ideas would be still welcome.

-Eli

Oh, and temps are in the low to mid 80s, heating pad is warmer of course.

Aspen and cypress are my favorite mulches. Pine and cedar are toxic (of course they're the cheap ones... lol)

You might want to find out exactly how hot your hot side is. How is your humidity?

He's probably several months old at that size. They aren't all that big when they're born, but he's definately still a baby. Its less the size of the snake that matters, and more his mindset. If everything around him is bigger than he is, he's going to be afraid everything around him will eat him.

If you have a shredder, you could shred newpaper instead of buying cypress or aspen. I use it on all my snakes except new arrivals (paper towels) and cypress for females during breeding season. Hope this helps-
NorthernRegius

Hey all,
Good news, I blocked off three sides of his enclosure w/ black construction paper (you're right, i think he's much happier that way) and last night I tossed a live mouse in there with him which he ate once the thing was foolish enough to walk *into* his hide and try and sniff him. I suppose this means live food from now on, he was so fast grabbing the ignorant mouse I'm not sure why people worry about them fighting back heh.

Can't thank yous guys enough,
-Eli

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Just get him feeding well, and you can try f/t once he's got some confidence. If you find feeding live to be more convenient, then just make sure you watch him until he eats and understand that bites are possible.

I think f/t is more convenient because I don't have to drive to the petstore every week, but sometimes it takes some work to get them eating it... Give him a month or two, and if you need some tips to switch, give us a holler on the board.

As long as you are commenting on cages, do you mind taking a look at what I put together for my little girl? Daytime temperatures with the lights on are about 82°F just over the bowl on the left side, about 86°F on the round thermometer to the left, about 80°F on the vertical thermometer in the center, and about 78 to 80 °F on the cool side on the right. At night, the only overhead light is a black light on the right. The right side goes just over 80°F and the left side drops into the high 70's. The heating pad is under the left half of the floor. I'm misting about once a day, sometimes twice, and I'm having a hard time keeping the humidity above 30 to 40 percent. That problem surprises me. One reason that I use two water bowls is that I expected the high surface area to put more humidity into the air. She also doesn't seem to like my misting the cage. Whenever I mist everything, she hides in the log. Otherwise, she tends to sleep right there under the branch. I'm thinking of adding a soup mug with a plastic top as another hide. I'd cut a hole in the plastic top to give her access and another hole for a little ventilation. If I put moss inside and keep it misted, I hope it would give her a very humid place to soak.

I've had her exactly a week. I handled her only a few minutes on the first day or two that I had her. I handle her about once every other day now. She ate a live rat pinkie last night. At the suggestion of the pet store, I left the pinkie in a little paper bag in which they sold it and just put her in the bag with the pinkie. She waited about fifteen or twenty minutes before eating. I didn't plan on handling her again until tomorrow, but I'm going to mist her in a couple of minutes. She's sleeping all stretched out, so I'm sure she'll go hide when I finish.

Thanks,

Bill