Hi,

I have been assisting a baby spider ball python in feeding, he refused to eat on his own and was getting very skinny. Well I got him to start eating with assist feeding, but he only ate if assisted. He had gotten to the point that all I had to do was stick the pre-killed rat pink in his mouth and he would lightly coil on it and than gobble it down. Well I was doing that about every 3 days and once he hit over a 100 grams I slowed down and went about a week between meals. That was due to a gap in pinks being born. Well he refuse that pink, so I put him up for a few days and tried again, he refused again, but I noticed he looked like he was going into shed. So I left him alone. He had a bad shed but with a little help got it all off. So I tried to feed him this morning, and he refused, and I tried again tonight, I know its close but I thought I was going to have success, he was holding the pink in his mouth and he looked like he was starting to eat it, and than stopped and spit it out. I tried once more and than put him up. Why would a baby who was doing so well on assisting suddenly stop? I am going to wait a couple of days and offer him a live pink over night, but he has never taken a live pink on his own.