I hope people aren't sick of me by now, but I want to make sure I do everything right with my new ball. I attempted to offer food for a third time to Luke last night. Following the advice given to me here, I offered live. I started with prescenting. I stuck the cardboard box containing the live mouse into Luke's tub for half an hour - the tub reeked of mouse after that. However, I still got no signs of movement from Luke. I know he is sensitive to light, so I decided to pre-scent for another half hour with him in total darkness and silence. I came back and sure enough he was out on top of one of his hides, apparently interested in this stinky box. But as soon as I turned on the (small) light to check on him, he retreated into his hide again.

With high hopes for his eating, I released the mouse, and decided to leave him and it alone in darkness and quiet for awhile. Literally, if you have even the tiniest light on in the room, he won't come out, so I decided leaving him in darkness was better than supervising him. Came back in an hour; the mouse is running laps around his tub, and he's in his hide with his head poking out, retreating whenever the mouse passes by. At this point I needed to go to sleep, so I put the mouse in a bag and whacked it so that I thought I had killed it, and left it in with him overnight in case he decided to eat.

This morning, turns out I hadn't killed it after all! (Yes, I know, this was very stupid - it was an accident.) No scratches on Luke, luckily - he was curled up under the newspaper and the mouse was alive and well under one of his hides. Not knowing what else to do with the live mouse, I killed it (for real this time) and gave it to my corn, who happily ate it up.

I just want him to eat! What, if anything, did I do wrong here? Why does he seem to be afraid of mice? I feel like most snakes, if their enclosure has smelled like mouse for half an hour and then suddenly there is a live mouse doing laps outside their door, there's no question that they will eat. His humidity is perfect, and his temps are the same as those for my female, who eats like a champ - flexwatt direct temp set to 92, actual ground temp on warm side around 88-89, cool side in mid 70's.

Furthermore, why is he so insanely affected by light? My other snakes are not too bothered by it at all.

I can't figure this guy out, and my current plan is to repeat this episode next week (minus leaving a live mouse in there all night accidentally ) and hope he will get used to the routine.