i did something stupid....very stupid

Wow... I have a 10 month old that hasn't eaten in 2 months... They tend to do this now and then. LOL

just wait him out, try once a week or twice a month. do you pre- scent the air or room with a rodent smell? sometimes this helps to wake everyone up and get them in feed mode! just leave the rats in there for 15-20 min. to really stink it up! lol


vaughn

i would wait 2weeks then try it

I think that your best bet would be to try at your next feeding a smaller food item, since he seems scared of the rat maybe he is not ready to eat something that big? But either way i agree with cutting down the food size and seeing if that helps.

the thing is he has been eating the same size rat since january so i mean why would all of a sudden would he be frightened of it? but i have decided to leave him alone completely till next week and if i see any of his usual signs of being hungry(cruising in the day time, sliding up against the glass) i will feed him but if i see no signs i will wait another week so then he will be nice and hungry and just can't refuse a nice warm rat....hopefully lol. thank you guys for all your help :)

Brian

I tell ya, one of the greatest ideas that i got was from my boy Adam. I adopted my own twist to it but i'll be darned if it doesn't work like a charm! I first allow the rat to thaw out in the room with Hissy's tank. This scents the air as Vaughn put it. Then, I put the rat on top of the screen hole of my AP cage & I take a blow dryer & rain the blow dryer down on the rat blowing the smell of the rat into the cage. This drives Hissy WILD! Now your humidity readings will take a sharp drop initially but once the warm, dry air is taken out of the equation, the humidity will bounce right back up. But, the warm, rat scented air was just what i needed to get Hissy off of a fast that lasted five months!

A ball python not eating for 2 weeks can hardly be considered going "off-feed." Younger (yearling or less) bps that eat small rats regularly, in my own experience, tend to go through short periods of time where they aren't hungry. I'm not sure of the exact reason for this, but my best reasoning tells me that it is primarily due to the fact that rats are just 'thicker' than mice or other smaller prey items and rats tend to "fill them up" more than the latter.

For example, I recieved a 5-6 m/o ball python that was already eating small rats. Fat little guy for sure. Since I've had him, he'll willingly and enthusiastically take a small rat once a week for 3 weeks or so. Then, the 4th week, he'll have no interest in eating. Sometime within the next couple of weeks, he has a bowel movement and his overall girth appears to be smaller. At this point, he resumes his normal feeding schedule. I know everyone has a unique experience with their snakes, but this is just a patter that I have noticed with mine.

If your conditions are right, they will eat when they are ready....so don't freak out over 2 weeks....