Baby Albino Ball Python Question

Hello,

I just picked up a baby Albino female on Sunday and I noticed her eyes have a lighter shade on the upper half. Today when feeding her she missed twice but ended up getting the mouse. Do some Albino (or other morphs for that matter) have different shading in their eyes? I know that my BEL has a few different shades of color in his eyes but just wondering?

I really wish I knew how to add images to these posts....

Most ball pythons have 2 colors / 2 shades of one color in their eyes (including albinos). Since most morphs have a stripe on the scales of their face that goes "under" their eyes, the area where that stripe is is usually a different color. Are you worried that your girl is blind? She's probably perfectly fine. Ball pythons are kind of goofy and it isn't uncommon for them to miss their food when they strike, especially younger BP's. And even if a ball python had vision problems, they have the pit organs on their face that can sense heat, so they can "see" that way. Your girl sounds perfectly normal to me! :)

I have a baby albino mojave male, he also has this eye gradient you are describing. The top third of his eyes are a paler whitish pink and the lower two thirds are red. Your BP sounds normal to me too!

I think she has a hard time seeing. She continually misses every time I attempt to feed her F/T from tongs. Today she missed 3 times! Should be interesting when she gets bigger, lol.

I would recommend using a heat lamp after thawing out your rodents. Just take your thawed rodent and put it under the light until it is fairly warm to the touch, then feed. You don't want to cook it in any way, just heat it up. Its a trick that I know a lot of people use, because ball pythons really use their heat pits to "see" their prey more than their actual vision.

And many here use a blow-dryer to heat up the thawed rodent, concentrating on the nose end of the rodent, where you want your snake to target.
BPs use their heat-sensing pits quite a lot, actually; in "real life" they'd be ambush-hunting at night.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ssmith73

I think she has a hard time seeing. She continually misses every time I attempt to feed her F/T from tongs. Today she missed 3 times! Should be interesting when she gets bigger, lol.

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As just mentioned a ten second blast with a hairdryer works wonders !!

Especially if the lights are low and it's evening time of cou.

Mine all strike from within their hides incidentally so I wait until they're settled in their hides before dangling in front of their noses..


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by ssmith73

I think she has a hard time seeing. She continually misses every time I attempt to feed her F/T from tongs. Today she missed 3 times! Should be interesting when she gets bigger, lol.

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Well at least you know she's hungry and eating if she tried 3 times.:)
She'll get better with time.
Oh one tip, I tried holding by the tail and mine missed a lot too. It's kind of like my dog when he tries to catch the bouncing ball (more miss than hit.)
Try holding the feeder by the back skin and putting the feeder toward hide opening nose first (like a live one would enter a hide.) I'll bet you will see a huge change in hits if you were doing it by the tail. If you were doing it by the back then I'd say it will get better with practice at hitting IMO
And like Zincubus I try to avoid feeding my snake when it is out of hide wandering/searching. I found that often scares them when you come at them with a feeder at that time or mode. So I do it before or after search time.

I have an albino male and he misses quite often. If he lands a strike on the rats butt, that’s the end he starts swallowing first. Like Bogertophis said, I try to concentrate the heat if the hairdryer on the rats head to give him a better target. He eats like a champ though and has never refused a meal.