Hello all,

As you may have seen from my last thread [ http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...y-new-BP-setup ] I bought a baby albino BP about two weeks ago as a pet. In the last thread you all gave me some great direction as far as getting his temps correct, which I've finally accomplished thanks to a simple lamp dimmer from Lowe's. I had ordered a ReptiMed thermostat from Petmountain.com, but it was complete junk and shot my temp up to 110 degrees even on the lowest possible setting. With the lamp dimmer I have a hot spot temp of 93, cold side/ambient temp of 78-82, and humidity hovering around 40%.

My main problem with the baby is I can't seem to get him to eat. The breeder fed him live, but I'm not sure if it was mice or rats. My local pet store only carries f/t at the appropriate size (their live mice are all too large and they don't have baby rats) but my BP wants nothing to do with it. I tried offering a f/t hopper a few days after I got him, but he just went into defense mode and ignored the dangling mouse. Today I tried again, having finally gotten his temps correct... I thawed the mouse and warmed it up/dried it under the heat lamp, poked a few holes in its head, removed snakey's hide, and dangled the thing relentlessly in front of his face. Again he seemed entirely disinterested, the most response I could get out of him was for him to hide his head and look away from the food. After replacing his hide, changing the water, and replacing the lid to his house I have the mouse laying at the entrance to his hide, but I don't expect him to eat it.

I also rarely if ever see him come out of his hide (on the hot spot over the UTH) and I'm wondering if this could be because of the excessive temp fluctuations before I got a dimmer. He doesn't show the signs of stress that I'm aware of, i.e. he doesn't try to escape or press on the glass, in fact he doesn't really come out of his hide at all. Maybe this could be a different form of stress? Any insight on this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance! This is really stressing me out and I really appreciate the help!