Monty Ate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[alexrls]

178 days and now hes downing this tiny little mouse the size of his head but its a start!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW Ken, u beat me!!!

so now that he's eaten this tiny mouse should i wait till next week tuesday nite to feed him again or can i just try again tomorrow.

i think im gonna stay with mice for now. i dont think that hes a ratter again just yet.

[iceman25]

Congratulations on breaking his fast! I would wait until next week again before offering food again.

[cassandra]

Way to go Monty!! WOOHOO!

And I agree with Raj...wait til next week and don't even think about pestering him for two days. He needs to know it's safe to eat and digest. =)

[frankykeno]

Totally agree with the advice given. Leave him be for a couple of days, keep the handling down to a minimum and just work on his weekly feeds till he's taking whatever is an appropriate volume of prey whether it's mice or rats. Congrats on the feeding...isn't spring grand! LOL

[alexrls]

aight everybody and thanks for the advise.

the only things i want tomention are

A. monty iis cruising the tank sooo aggressively that i cant put the hide back in w/o him going all attack mode on me so but i think i just need to wait a bit. if i had another mouse i would probably give it to him right now.

and
B.this mouse has really tiny like just igger than his head. i think next time i'll get something more around the girth of his body.


oh and one more thing in terms of next week should i give double feeding a shot or just try to get him eating steadily on too small prey items for a while?

[cassandra]

Try to get the hide back in when he's not cruising, chilled out somewhere...

Others probably have better advice than me, but I'd work his way up slowly. Next week, next size up prey. Week after, next size until you get to the appropriate size. If you were feeding 2 appropriate size before, wait until the week after he takes 1 appropriate size and then the next week, try 2 appropriate sized.

[jglass38]

Nice job Alex! I know it was wearing on you...

[alexrls]

thanks jamie!

the second i saw him wrap that sucker up this HUGE weight lifted off of my shoulders and im floatin free as a bird now (lynrynd skynryd fans rejoice!!!)

[Davu]

IMO go for the size closest to his girth! He is a snake no real need to try and baby him or think you have to work the size of prey up. Or Feed two smaller meals at one feeding! There built to capture, eat and reproduce much like we are, lol, and i would be a lil cranky if someone only gave me a half of a whopper after i missed breakfast!! lol
Im a big beleiver in one right sized meal is better then smaller multiple ones and im also a big advocate of feeding f/t rats. Just wanted to let you know that because it directs much of my advice on feeding!
Awesome, awesome that he is eating again tho!! I can imagine the load off your shoulders!! I freaked out when Davu skiped one week so I can only imagine what a relief you must be feeling right now!!

[Adam_Wysocki]

No offense, but there a couple of points in your post that I don't agree with and I'd like to offer some input that might be helpful ...

IMO go for the size closest to his girth!

In my experience working with ball pythons, smaller prey items make them more consistent feeders. They have incredibly slow metabolisms (even compared to other snakes) and with balls, less food is more.

He is a snake no real need to try and baby him or think you have to work the size of prey up.

Actually, ball pythons can be very shy and timid ... for a slightly stressed ball python, prey size can make a huge difference ... too big and they get scared, too small and they won't "see it". Sometimes, it takes trial and error to find the correct prey size for a particular snake.

There built to capture, eat and reproduce much like we are, lol, and i would be a lil cranky if someone only gave me a half of a whopper after i missed breakfast!!

Actually, being ectothermic, they aren't built anything like us at all. Mammals need a constant caloric intake because we use those calories to generate our own body heat ... and as everyone knows, it takes a lot of fuel to create heat ... far more than anything else we use calories for. Ball pythons on the other hand are cold blooded (ectothermic) and heat their bodies using their environment. The only thing they need calories for is physiological function ... and since they are for the most part a very sedentary species, the number of calories they burn in a year is only a small fraction of what mammals burn in a week. A ball pythons hunger doesn't even come close to a mammals.

Im a big beleiver in one right sized meal is better then smaller multiple ones

Based on what exactly? .... I've seen the exact opposite with my colony of ball pythons over the last 25 years.

Just wanted to let you know that because it directs much of my advice on feeding!

Not that I'd ever want to discourage anyone from sharing their practical experience with others on this forum, but it seems that you haven't even owned a ball python long enough to see it's first shed and you're giving feeding advice? How many feedings have you done that you’re comfortable giving advice?

Not trying to pick on you at all … just pitching my $.02 into the thread.

-adam