Feeding Snag; What's going on??

Fed my five month old today, he is eating one adult mouse a week right now live. He took it well but only got it's head and neck into his mouth before he just kind of...stopped. He hasn't spit it out and he hasn't gone any further. He's almost motionless, just coiled around it, occasionally shifting slightly. It's been five hours. What's going on? He was so frozen earlier we thought he was dead until we touched his side and he flinched. Any ideas? He's never taken this long. Usually it takes a couple minutes for him to munch an adult mouse, once or twice when he's taking his time it's been up to an hour. Never like this though. He's just paused with its head and neck in his mouth.

Hi,

Are you sitting watching him? Try leaving the room if you are or covering his enclosure with a towel or something.


dr del

That's strange! The mouse isn't bigger that usual? After five hours like that, I would probably just remove it from his mouth.... if it comes out easily, observe him and maybe try feeding something smaller next week.

i second dr del

as soon as one of my snakeys starts eating i hit the lights and leave them alone, they are defenseless with food in their mouth and stress out very easily

Thanks for the advice guys. I wasn't making him nervous by watching him, after I make sure he's killed the mouse and started to munch it I leave him alone in my room. I tried to gently remove the mouse and he struggled against that so I stopped, and just a minute or two after that he started moving around and eating. Slowly, but he consumed it completely within an hour or so, and now today he's acting normal. Being reclusive but that's regular after eating behavior. I don't know what was going on. Hope it doesn't happen again.

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by jsixfingers

Thanks for the advice guys. I wasn't making him nervous by watching him, after I make sure he's killed the mouse and started to munch it I leave him alone in my room. I tried to gently remove the mouse and he struggled against that so I stopped, and just a minute or two after that he started moving around and eating. Slowly, but he consumed it completely within an hour or so, and now today he's acting normal. Being reclusive but that's regular after eating behavior. I don't know what was going on. Hope it doesn't happen again.

Thanks!

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I don't think it's anything. My python also has her "herp derp" moments from time to time too. The same thing has happened to me a few feedings: granted, not five hours long, but I've seen her sit there for 20+ minutes looking at her food before continuing. I always watch her eat and she has never seemed to mind it, so I think she either got lazy and fell asleep mid-snack or just taking in the surroundings for safety reasons. I wouldn't worry about it, ball pythons may occasionally act retarded as we may see it, but they have their mysterious reasons for their dramatic pauses :D

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My python also has her "herp derp" moments from time to time too.

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Same. I gave my pewter female a fuzzy today and she struck and killed it.... then she set her head on her coils with the dead fuzzy in her coils.

For like.

Thirty minutes.

Then she uncoiled, but ignored the fuzzy. I grabbed the fuzzy tail with the feeding tongs and her head whipped back toward it and she was following it like "hey, that's mine, what are you doing with it?!" I held it near her head and she slowly opened up her jaws and put them around the fuzzy's nose.

I dropped the fuzzy and she resumed eating like normal.

Ball pythons are strange...