Aggressive eater turned shy..

I have a 850 grams mojave male who has been an aggressive eater but the past two times I have tried to feed him he ducks his head under his body..not balling up but jerking his head under the middle section. Temp is 90 basking spot and 80 cool end humidity 48%. He acts interested at first then does the head jerking back and hes' done. He has been eating f/t like they were going out of style. I have tried room temp f/t, med heated and hot, white and dark colored rats, jiggling and leaving it with no luck. Any one else had this problem?

To answer your question: yes, almost everyone has this problem. Ball Pythons are particularly notorious for going off feeding for long stretches of time. Sometimes this happens for no reason, but sometimes there are reasons, here are some of them.

Your ball python may be "constipated" and not want to feed. If you run your fingers down his belly and feel a marble sized "bump," then this is the case. Soak your ball python in warm water until he passes this. Warm water always gets things movin' :)

The cage may be too cold or hot (this doesn't seem to be the case)

stress, or prior handling before feeding could cause a snake not to eat

They could be going into a shed

the snake may be sick (look for warning signs of things like RI)

or most importantly, they simply are not hungry!
Seeing that it has only been two weeks, i would not stress. But, it is important not to over offer food. You should still keep consistent with your usual feeding schedule. Best of luck! :gj:

My pastel male is about the same size and he isn't eating much either. Could be the cool weather or he could just be being picky. As long as he isn't loosing weight I wouldn't worry. You could try leaving it overnight with him if he eats f/t.

There's a phenomenon known as "the wall" which many (but not all) ball pythons experience. Somewhere between 600 and 1,000 grams, ball pythons decide it's the perfect time to stop eating for a while - sometimes as long as a few months!

It's not always that they are going off feed for breeding, but an 850 gram mojave male is pretty much big enough to breed - so that is also a possible reason.

I wouldn't worry too much, even if he does stop feeding for even longer. This time of year it is not that uncommon. As long as he doesn't look too much weight, or start to look noticeably thinner and skinnier, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

-Jen

My 550~ gram female is right in the middle of this. Was eating fine, went off feed for more than a month, ate a couple times, then refused for more than two months, ate again, and she's back to refusing. Snakes, man. What can you do. ;)