Hi! New Here! + A couple feeding questions already :)

[snakechaarmer]

Hi there -

I'm Leigh. Im from Jacksonville, FL. Im pretty active in the herp communities on Livejournal and Myspace but a friend on myspace reffered me here because of a problem I'm having. I will copy and paste my questions and hope to Geeze someone has some answers!

Anyway I've been involved in herping personally for about 3 years and a fan my whole life. Pretty much the zookeeper. I'm also a semi-pro middle eastern (bellydancer) dancer and I use some of my better tempered scaleys in some of my choreographies

Anyway, looking forward to meeting people here and seeing s ome of you at daytona next weekend!!

here's my questions:


1) I have a 4 year old seemingly healthy male BP, Adrian. He's never had any eating problems. I think two years ago he regurged once and i think it was because he didnt poop and he ate another too soon. He has never really gone more than 2 weeks refusing food. He bred successfully last year, though he is a very timid boy. I have another male that he was being housed with until breeding season of last year started, because they started fighting and the other male (Adam) was winning and damaging Adrian's ego.
I promptly separated them and Adrian had his own enclosure until it was time for him to be with the ladies. Now, he still has his own enclosure. He has a large water bowl, a hide area in both sides of the tank, and the ambient is about 87 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now..I am pretty sure the last time this boy ate was Early March. WELL out of breeding season. The temperatures have been stable, the light cycle is definitely the NOT breeding season light cycle - I am doing everything right husbandry wise that I know of per the books. He shows no physical signs of illness. Its been nearly 5 months and he hasn't eaten. Ive tried every week, varying sizes of rats from extra small to mediums like he normally eats, and nothing.

Second Question -

As most of you know I hatched out my first BP clutch on July 4. Most of the babies have eaten at least 3 times, 3 are already sold to their new homes. I have one that is EXTREMELY aggressive that is going to take some TLC to calm down, and then I have another that hasn't eaten yet. Its been over a month since they were born. He/She is visibly losing weight.

Everyone else accepted a mouse hopper, this boy...Ugh.
Ive tried : Mouse Hoppers, Mouse Pinkies, Mouse Jumpers, Mouse fuzzies -
Mouse Fuzzy in a brown bag, Rat pup in a brown bag...

Im sure there are other methods but I am at my wits end! I live in Jacksonville, FL and NOBODY has baby gerbils. I found one store that had one and when my bf went to pick it up the guy refused to sell the gerbil to him because "it was not food"....wtf. anyway. Tonight i was going to try brown bag with lived-in rat shavings, with a new born rat pup.

Does anyone have any other tips or tricks for the little bugger?

Any help appreciated, thanks.

[AzureN1ght]

Welcome to BP.net! It's a great place for information and I'm glad you decided to come here. As far as getting hatchlings to eat, I can't really help there as I've never hatched out any BPs. So I'll let some other members deal with the feeding questions

I'm curious how you have your snakes set up. You said that Adrian was living with another male for awhile--do you house your snakes together normally? Or do they all now have separate enclosures?

[snakechaarmer]

Thanks for the gracious greetings

Some of them live together, most do not. Some of my females that have no eating problems are just fine being in the same large enclosure, while the boys, Ive found, generally dont like being together. So all the boys are separated while some of the girls bunk together

[Kagez28]

ball pythons are solitary snakes, and really shouldn't be housed together....

there of tons of reasons not to house them but i really don't want to start anymore trouble. it's a touchy subject here sometimes.

i do STRONGLY recommend separating any ball pythons you have housed together.

[AzureN1ght]

I, like Kevin, and many others around here, believe that BPs (and snakes in general) should be kept in separate enclosures... as he stated there are many reasons: possible spread of disease, issues of one snake dominating the other and causing stress (as it sounded in the case of your Adrian and Adam), problems eating (due to the stress), etc.

I'm not sure how you're housing your snakes (maybe you could give us a run-down of how you set up your enclosures?)--but because you have so many, you might want to think about rack systems. They're space-efficient and would allow you to house your snakes individually while taking up MUCH less space than twenty tanks/loose tubs would.

Just some thoughts

Also--I think it's AWESOME that you bellydance professionally. I took a class at my University a year ago and I've been really wanting to take classes again. It's such a beautiful art form--and I feel good while I'm doing it

[snakechaarmer]

I know lots of people have many different opinions on housing them, but until I run into a problem with a particular snake I don't see any reason to change what's not broken, but thanks for the concern

Several books I have read, including some by the Barkers and Phillipe state that in some instances it is perfectly fine.

Still hoping someone can help me out on the feeding questions!

[juddb]

Welcome im in jacksonville too.

[juddb]

I know you dont want to hear it but this worked for me, I have a female pastel who is 700 grams a little more now, but i had her in my 32qt tub rack and she went off feed for a while , but i tried a little experiment and moved her into the 15qt tub rack and shes a dump truck now, eating every week.
So what im trying to say is maybe a smaller tighter darker enclosure... Its a feeling of security for them you know. But if she isnt losing weight or showing any signs of being unhealthy then she should be fine. But hey good luck

[snakechaarmer]

Both of the ones that have stopped eating are in, in my opinion, very small enclosures for their size or appropriate. The adult male that has stopped eating is in the equivalent of a 20g tank, and the hatchling is in a shoebox..so I dont think space is the issue. It was for my other male bp, but I dont think it is for this one.

thanks though

[juddb]

Well if he doesnt look like hes loosing weight or dehydrated then he should be fine..