Another 'help me' feeding thread.

[momma501]

I know there's threads on feeding - and I've been reading all I can find - but I'm looking for some advice & guidance for my BP Rex.

He's about 5 months old - 192 grams. When I bought him, he was eating live hoppers outside of his enclosure (in a separate feeding tub). So to start off with, I did his first feeding just like that. Larger hopper, in a separate container. He struck nicely, killed and ate no problem. The next feeding, I ended up with a very active hopper and he wasn't able to catch it. So I killed it for him, held in front of him with the long tweezers to entice him. He struck, weakly this time, and ate. I'm happy to do pre-killed as I don't really want him getting hurt, so I went with that for the next couple feedings. He seemed to get a bit more 'dis-interested' with each feeding. He stopped striking, took his time to slither around the enclosure, but eventually (within 20 minutes) came over and ate.

The 2nd to last time, he did not eat in the separate enclosure at all. He seemed more concerned about checking out the enclosure and trying to find a way out. I ended up putting him, along with the dead mouse, back in his tank. I left him alone for an hour and went back to check and the mouse was gone. My children were with me that time, so I wrote it off as too much distraction.

Yesterday was feeding day. It had been 2 weeks. He was not interested in the other enclosure, and I put him back with the mouse in his - and he didn't eat it there either.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I was thinking of bumping him up to rat pups next feeding, but since he didn't eat this mouse, I'm not sure if that's the best idea. Also not sure if I should continue to pre-kill, or let him try live again to get his interest up. And not sure if I should continue to feed in a separate enclosure, or try to feed in his regular tank.

Any ideas or advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[frankykeno]

Well if you can get ahold of one I'd go for a live rat fuzzy (aka rat crawler). They are perfectly safe to leave in with the snake overnight if you have to, since they have no erupted teeth to speak of. Most of my ball pythons seem to react very well to the movements of this size of prey. Enough movement to trigger a strike, no really fast movements that might put some snakes off or just make them give up if they are a bit of a lazy hunter.

Personally I'd let the snake feed in it's own enclosure. Ball pythons are ambush predators so hunting from a place they know and feel safe in has a tendency to make them more confident in their hunting skills (sorry to use people terms for what is actually a very natural snake process with no emotional issues attached to it).

[momma501]

The rat pups that the store carries are about the size of an adult mouse. They have them labeled 'rat weanlings'. I'm thinking those do have teeth? If so, would you still suggest leaving one in the enclosure with him?