Fuzzy mouse overnight?

[Brimstone111888]

To get some picky feeders to start eating, is it safe to leave a fuzzy mouse in over night? They are harmless correct? I was thinking of trying this with a stubborn feeder of mine.

[BallPythonsRule]

A fuzzy should be fine but make sure to take it out in the morning...

[Lokua]

i hope this doesnt sound cruel but you may try injuring the fuzzy? a needle prick on its leg should be enough for the scent of blood.

or could try wrapping a bit of lizard skin around it and see if the snake goes for that

edit: this could sound...odd but try feeding during sunrise or sunset and during full moons and new moons

[hoo-t]

The lizard skin trick works well for snakes that eat reptiles in their natural environment... kingsnakes, hognosed snakes, antaresia pythons. Shouldn't be necessary or even beneficial with ball pythons. Also, as far as the "injury" to the fuzzy, if you are using an ALREADY DEAD prey item, sometimes "braining" will work to get a picky eater started. Using a scalpel, razor blade, exacto knife, etc, cut into their skull, and spread a little of the brain matter around on the head of the ALREADY DEAD prey item.

Steve

[frankykeno]

It should be fine Jeff. Do look at the whole picture with your picky feeder. Things like light levels, levels of traffic near this particular snake, housing, temps, humidity, etc. Sometimes it's various things at work that are not encouraging the snake to feel secure enough to hunt and small tweaks can be just enough to get it going. Here's an example, though it's from an 07 hatchling boa...

Morgaine belongs to another forum member, we're simply snakesitting for Lynn. Morgaine came in a lovely, though quite small hatchling and even after a quiet week was refusing to eat. Now this is someone else's snake, a small boa that I wanted to see eating as soon as possible. I stepped back, thought about all the factors that go into a feeding situation and decided that one factor that might be an issue was the Iris tubs we use. Morgaine came out of breeder using racks, so was likely far more used to a darker rack situation.

Simple fix...I grabbed an old dark blue pillowcase, draped it over a good part of her enclosure (leaving room of course for ventilation), gave it a couple of days to make sure she was settling and the temps/humidity weren't changing due to the pillowcase and then introduced a prey item. I covered her entire enclosure with the pillowcase while the prey was in there and within moments she was all over the prey. I left the pillowcase on until she was done eating then folded it back a bit. We do this every time we feed her now and Morgaine is now eating like there's no tomorrow and has even started hitting her prey before I can even get the lid snapped down and the pillowcase on again LOL.

Sometimes it's just little tricks that work for that particular snake once you figure out what might be affecting the snake.

[Brimstone111888]

Well I got my snake from Scott at Brookside Reptiles and he helped me through it all. I added somethings to the enclosure to make it smaller. She is already in a rack so it is all regulated properly. I went through everything and everything seemed fine.

I went and got a fuzzy and dropped it in and checked back about 45 minutes later and he was gone. I think her problem was she was having a bad shed, because of shipping. I guess she wont be eating during shed.

My other one will eat anything at any time.

[Ginevive]

Draping a towel or blanket over the enclosure is a great idea. I do this as a routine measure in my rack, as one of my females in particular gets distracted by any outside motion..
I am glad your snake ate

[ama1997]

http://www.8ballpythons.com/journal/...ingseating.htm