Ball Python being picky

I have a male lesser that was purchased at my local expo. He has eaten live and frozen in the past and I feed exclusively frozen/thawed. He hasnt eaten for a couple weeks and I've tried smashing the skulls to get the blood out, and tried heating differently/leaving him in iso with a rat fuzzy for a while. Any suggestions on getting him to eat?

Leave the rodent by his hide overnight. Sometimes the snakes will eat it in the middle of the night when no one's around.

One of my guys will only eat live.. And won't in public site. I feed in his enclosure only but I have to drop the live prey in the tank and turn off the lights and within 10-20 mins he comes out and does his things..sometimes he will take immediately others no. I think he's bipolar,lol

How old/big is he? If he's mature he could be thinking about females and not food.

Depending on rodent size ofcourse I'm not to big on leaving bigger FT rodents just sitting in my tank thawing and warming up away all night..diseases germs just disgusting. Maybe if anything try it during the day or when u r awake at night for a few hours at a time..that's just me though..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bcr229

How old/big is he? If he's mature he could be thinking about females and not food.

---

Hes not an adult yet, hes still a juvie.

I have a clown female who eats live only. Which means sometimes she has to skip a week if the local shop runs out before I can get there in time. :rolleyes: Waiting on my own rats to produce so I don't have to worry about that. Anyways I was told she was a garbage disposal and ate live or F/T and rats or mice. Well I tried every technique and rat/mouse size appropriate for her to get her to eat F/T. I got one successful feeding and many more refusals. Sometimes switching just isn't going to happen. Maybe in the future.

BPs are just weird. I've had a female I got to switch to F/T from the breeder getting her to finally take prekilled. She's always eaten weirdly (like doesn't always strike or will strike but not always coil), but lately she's decided that F/T isn't what she fancies anymore. Hasn't eaten in a few weeks. So I say get ready to give them what they like or go through wasting feeders and getting frustrated.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tpythons

Hes not an adult yet, hes still a juvie.

---

Do you have his weight? My boy is only 600g and he is mature (we found that out when popping him and didn't actually need to do it fully to see he was male)

Males mature much quicker so it is a valid question to ask. If he is much under that it may finding the style he will eat in, some are really particular which drives us loopy!

Just to add to that my 617g male is a cb12, an early cb13 male could even be ready to breed. Your BP could easily be at that stage if he's a juvi (around a year old I found for the definition of a juvi on a thread on here)

If he's not loosing significant weight then relax. It's only been 2 wks. Some go off feed for 6 to 8 months. Just stay the course and keep the parameters of his enclosure spot on. He will eat eventually. Don't start stressing until he starts looking really underweight.