has anyone seen this "hunting" behavior?

[Steve-J]

Hi, I'm new here (for posting, I've been reading all of the great info for a while, thanks!) My BP (juvenile, 3 months old) is doing great, she's eating well and switched from F/T mice to F/T rat pups without a problem and is now going into her second shed since I have had her. She was in a 10 Gallon with a large water dish (because it's pretty dry in my apt) and it seemed like it was time to put her in a larger enclosure because it was pretty cramped. She seems to have taken to the new home well and here's the question (finally!) I put in a decent sized grapevine because she was using the smaller branch in the previous enclosure and I know they don't 'need' to climb but she seemed to "enjoy" it. Tonight she went up to the top of the branch and was "looking around" for a little bit, fine. then she went into "hunting" mode focusing on the water dish. she would stretch down to check it out then pull back her neck in an S and wait, wait, wait. she's been at this for about two hours. I'm wondering if anyone has seen this kind of behavior? Just to add: we have a "pet" gerbil that's about 3 years old and lives in an enclosure across the room, from the moment we brought the BP in she has been VERY interested in the scents that she gets coming in from the top of her enclosure (it also may be why she has been such a good eater, with the smell around all the time) even with this, I haven't ever seen this particular type of waiting and "hunting". also the new enclosure was cleaned prior to installation and the water dish is the same one she had before. . . whew! sorry for the Novella, I'll try to rope back posts to less than a few hundred pages Thanks in advance for any ideas/info!!

[mark and marley]

hahaha seems like shes just snooping around especially because of the constant gerbil smell.
on the climbing,my bp LOVES to climb her bamboo and tree.ive fed her a couple of times while she was "hanging out".was the coolest feeding ever all hanging from the tree constricting the prey like an arboreal species.

[gibleis]

My female het pie loves to climb and just hang out for hours. None of the others really do. I think its just a personality thing

[KCB Constrictors]

The Gerbil is the answer.

Gerbils are a ball python's primary food source in the wilds of northern Africa. In fact, one of the most successful tricks to getting a picky eater to feed is by rolling the prey item around in soiled gerbil bedding to give it that "gerbil scent."

You need to get rid of the gerbil, or at the very least, get it as far away from the python as you can. Any time the snake catches a whiff of that thing, it's going to go into a feed response.

[jsmorphs2]

She could be smelling the Gerbil or she could just hunting because it's night. All our snakes cruse at night and 'hunt', especially if its close to feeding day. I wouldn't worry about keeping the Gerbil in the same room. Just be aware when she's in feeding mode and leave her be as with any snake in feeding mode. We've raise ASFs in our snake room for a few years and it never created a problem. It was actually helpful when we had an escape last year, the escapee was found under the ASF shelving unit, .

[Steve-J]

Thanks for all of the feedback! It's good to hear that some other BP's are into climbing and hanging around also, my BP (J.J.) had an arboreal feeding last week and it was really surprising, I thought that she would come down before she struck, but she pulled it right over and constricted on the branch - finished the whole thing while hanging upside down! w/r/t the gerbil smell, we always wash our hands really well before any maintenance and handling and of course feed with 16" hemos (not taking any chances) . We've been hyper-aware that J.J. is always getting the scent of the gerbil from the screen top coming in from above, and she has never shown any readiness to eat until there was an actual prey item being introduced (even though she is often reaching toward the top to home in on the delicious scent), that is why this seemed so odd, because she was focusing down toward the water dish from above. I wonder if this was just part of an instinctive "watering hole" scenario now that she has the option to perch above a water source and feel comfortable. . . Thanks again for all of the input, I hope I don't have any major issues that need resolving but if I ever do I'm glad to be a part of this community where there is so much great info available!

[Eric Doane]

Mine climbs as well. I have a pic in my gallery of her constricting a mouse while on her tree. She refused to come down, and ate both mice while on her perch

[Slytherin]

Ooo, if you guys can, capture some pictures of your BPs eating while hanging on their branches. That would be some pretty cool pics to see.

Also, besides from that, mine likes to roam about as well. Usually BPs are just curious, so you'll see them prodding their tank cover with their nose or just slithering around.

[jbean7916]

My spider ate his from on top of his hide just the other day!

sent from my EVO