Hi guys! I posted a while back on how picky my ball python is and how he strikes and kills the hopper mouse but does not eat it. He has done this twice now. I got him on 11-13-10 and was told he was about 2 months old. He refused his first meal, and then took the next two. I am feeding him small hopper mice, about as big around as his mid section. The 2 most recent meals, he killed and left alone all night long. We feed him at night, every Sunday (except today, we will be trying to feed him tomorrow as we just got back into town from a long weekend for the holiday) and I am wondering why he may be doing this? We put the mouse in the cage, wait for him to strike it and turn the lights off and leave the room. We have him in the office so we can totally seclude him from all commotion. then in the morning, the mouse is still there. The last time we watched the whole thing, from striking to killing and then he looked like he had a hard time "finding" the head to start eating. Then he gave up and went in his hide. I had recieved some advice that his cage was too big , and too "clutter it up" and also to get him some smaller hides. So I added some logs and a second water dish which I keep crumpled up wet paper towels in to help with humidity. I have lined the outside of the cage with black foamy contact paper, and did get him smaller hides, which he uses( I used to have the large half logs that you can get at pet stores). We just got a digital scale (I got it for xmas ) so I can weigh him to make sure he doesn't start dropping weight. I have taken some pics of his set up and him for you all to see. The cage has a ceramic heat bulb on top on the middle right, an UTH on the right and i use two probe thermometers to measure the temps. one on the cool, which is currently at 80.3 and one on the warm side, which is just a wee bit to the left of the hide and is currently at 87.9 it is closer to 90 under his hide though. He usually can be found on the cool side of the cage as well. the humidity is currently at 60%, and everytime i see it drop below 50% i mist the cage and make sure he has a nice full water bowl and fresh wet paper towels. As of tonight, he wieghs 74 grams. He has had 2 very healthy bowel movements since I got him as well. Any advice?
The pics may have a bit of condensation on the tank wall, i had just misted. It is gone now and he is currently under his cool hide on the left. He does frequently roam the cage though...