Hi everyone,

My husband and I have recently taken in a 16-year-old ball python that was previously neglected by its owners. We're actually not sure of the sex, but we typically refer to him as a male. In his previous home, he often went months without feeding, and when he did eat it was always live rats. He was never handled, aside from feeding times. His previous terrarium's humidity and temperature were not correct or stable and it was almost never cleaned appropriately. He sometimes refused to eat. When we took him into our home, we set him up nicely with a great terrarium with two hide boxes and appropriate humidity/temperature. He seems to be starving now! We decided that we'd try to feed him pre-killed food, although we were worried that he wouldn't eat it as he had always had live before. He ate it without a problem. He has since eaten maybe 5 pre-killed rats easily and very very quickly after we have offered. They're probably medium-sized rats. We're planning to buy bigger rats, but we bought a whole box of these frozen ones due to astronomical shipping prices. We haven't tried to handle him yet as we've been trying to get him acclimated to his new environment with as little stress as possible. Most evenings (and sometimes during the day) when we walk over to his terrarium to check it out, he gets excited and seems to be looking at us like we're prey, coiling up, etc. We fed him four days ago and then last night he seemed to be looking for prey so much that we thought we'd try again and he ate it immediately. From what I've read, he really should only be eating once a week or so - but I have had trouble finding information on snakes that had been previously neglected. I am wondering if he might need to eat more than normal at this point; maybe because of having low body weight? He is a big guy - maybe 5 feet long and he doesn't look extremely skinny or anything - of course we haven't weighed him yet as we haven't been handling him.

So I guess my questions are: how often should I be feeding a snake that has been previously neglected (eating only every few months - almost always at least every 2-3 months)? Is more than once a week too much to start out with if he is often searching for prey? Is this normal for a previously neglected bp to seem so hungry even right after eating? How can we eventually get him not to think of us as prey whenever we come over to his terrarium? We bought some long gloves that we (at least my husband!) plan to handle him with in case he thinks we're prey and bites us during handling. I don't know.. this is all new ground for me as I've never had experiences with snakes of any kind. Whatever information you might be able to share with me would be helpful. Thanks