I finally got my ball python to eat. Find out what worked.

So after about 3 months of my ball python not feeding. She finally has eaten. She is about a year and a half old and weighs about 530 grams. She is my first ball python and started to begin to worry me. About two weeks ago I got a snake rack the kind sold by reptile basics that holds three ball pythons and put her in it with all the correct temps. She still would not eat. I tried many different methods and may have scared her from some of them working because as green as I am when one didn't work I would try another right away without giving her time to calm down. So what methods did I try. I tried live prey, pre-killed, frozen-thawed, twice frozen thawed, all without luck. After talking to some people on here I learned that maybe my food choice was to big and got a smaller live rat. After attempting to offer it to her in her tub using 10 inch tongs she still would not take it. This was tried about 8 weeks of refusals. I finally decided to leave her alone for awhile and pre-killed a 65 gram rat ( I know still a little to big but hey after 3 refusals it grew a little on me) quietly I open her tub snuck it in there using 10 in hemostats and layed it in the middle of her tub. Shut off the lights in the room and left her alone for about 15 minutes. When I came back it was gone and she was alert in her hid poking her head out. I think a number of thing contributed to her finally eating. One would be the rack. I think the rack allows her privacy to relax where my lights going off and on don't affect her so much when she is in the back of her tub in the hide. 2. The rack provides a better buffer of sound than the glass terrarium did. 3. Me pre-killing the rat allowed the body heat of the rat to still be there and the smell of it to be present without the movement of the rat to scare her. 4. By slipping it in with the hemostats she didn't see my heat signature and felt less threatened. There you have it. Thanks everybody for all of you input when I was in need.

congrats!

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Originally Posted by fishmommy

congrats!

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thank you it's such a relief and I'm proud of myself:D

Now I wonder though how long I should wait before handling again. Maybe I should wait for her to eat a couple more times?

Whenever any of mine go off feed, I like to completely stop handline other than routine maintenance (cage cleaning, etc). I generally wait until they have three good feeds in a row before regular handling again. But, that's what works for me.

I have one snake who will not eat and it is a drag. All of my others slam the rats every week~ but not this girl. She's in a rack, we pre-scent, she has not gotten handling but for regular maintenance, etc. She is healthy and so we just continue to offer each week. At one point, she will accept; until then, I fret!

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Originally Posted by starmom

I have one snake who will not eat and it is a drag. All of my others slam the rats every week~ but not this girl. She's in a rack, we pre-scent, she has not gotten handling but for regular maintenance, etc. She is healthy and so we just continue to offer each week. At one point, she will accept; until then, I fret!

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Do you feed live, what size, rats or mice?

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Whenever any of mine go off feed, I like to completely stop handline other than routine maintenance (cage cleaning, etc). I generally wait until they have three good feeds in a row before regular handling again. But, that's what works for me.

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Thanks for the info

great job man however i wouldnt handle till after shes eaten a few times for me

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Originally Posted by naba2002

great job man however i wouldnt handle till after shes eaten a few times for me

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Good to know, thank you. Yeah I'm even afraid to take her out to do her cleaning and weighing her and stuff. It's pretty miserable when they go on a strike.