Cage aggression instead of eating...

[Serpent_Crowley]

I've been having trouble the past few months with Crowley, my 4yr old ball python. Since I got him over 2yrs ago, he was always a super chill snake, even during feeding. But the past few months, he has started becoming aggressive at me instead of eating. I feed f/t mice/rats, which has been his diet his entire life, but recently instead of slowly coming out and meandering his way to the rat, he has been shooting out of his hide strike-ready, and strikes at my hand/tongs, completely ignoring the rat. I'll leave his food in there and close the tank, and he'll just sit there strike-ready staring at the top of the tank before going back into his hide, completely ignoring the rat. Then, if I make any noise (e.g. from opening the tank again, or even just shifting the towel), he shoots out again, repeating the whole process. I'll leave him alone all night, only to find in the morning he's back in his hide and hasn't even touched the rat.

I do admit that his tank is a bit too cold (~70F), but it has been this way ever since I got him, and I've never been concerned over it since whenever I get one side to a warmer/more ideal temperature, he moves to the cold side. He has water, and two hides: a solid little cave (his preferred hide) on one side and a covered spot from a bunch of logs on the other, which has been the arrangement since I got him. He just shed last week, and although he has lost a bit of weight (this behavior started after his winter fast, so he has only eaten once or twice in several months), it isn't enough to cause concern, and he otherwise appears perfectly healthy.

He has started shooting out like this now whenever I open the tank, and I've had to start spritzing him with the spray bottle when I go in to spray down his tank to encourage him to go back into his hide and ignore me.

Any suggestions on what might be causing this and how to fix it to get my chill ball python back?

[Serpent_Crowley]

Update (of a good kind!):

I also asked on Yahoo Answers, where someone suggested that he may be disoriented from not eating as well as usual (which would make sense, since this behavior started after fasting and then he hasn't been eating due to it for a while after fasting), and that I should try warming up the rat under the heat lamp and then really presenting it to him, moving it around to get his attention, etc. I did just that, and after a moment he actually locked on to the rat instead of just staring at the lid of the tank, and after thinking real hard about it for a few minutes, he first unsuccessfully struck at it (missing it/striking right next to it), and then successfully snagged it from the tongs. He's currently working on eating right now!

I figure I'll feed him another small rat each week for a couple of weeks, and then try upgrading him back to his usual medium rat every other week. Hopefully once he's caught up to his appetite, he'll go back to his normal, super chill self.

I figured I'd leave this thread up in case there's someone else browsing through with the same problem. =)

[bcr229]

1) I would fix his temperatures anyway as it helps them digest. If it's too cold the feeder will start rotting inside your snake instead of being digested.

2) How hot are the f/t feeders? I make mine quite warm on the outside - the water is 105*F or so - as otherwise I've found that the snake sometimes ignores it in favor of my hand. With a BP that's not a big deal, with a boa it's a huge bloody deal...

[Serpent_Crowley]

1) Eep, I didn't know that...Well, I'll definitely work on figuring it out by next winter; With glorious temperatures of nearly 100F around the corner, I'm more concerned about keeping it cool than warm now.

2) I've always just let them thaw to room temperature, which now that I think about it, doesn't make much sense since the body temp of a living rat is warmer than that lol. But like I said, he never had a problem before, so it never occurred to me that I'd need to change that...I'll start leaving them to really warm up under the heat lamp from now on.

Crowley's my first snake, so it's always a learning process!