First ball pythons, need advice on feeding?

Thanks for the advice everyone!

So, I should try feeding them again tomorrow? I read on a caresheet not to try again for another week. However, I am actually glad they refused the food this time since I don't want them to be harmed because I did not prepare it properly. I'm glad I found this forum. I was pretty worried and it's nice to get straightforward answers to my questions. :) Thank you very much. You can't trust everything you see on YouTube, even if it seems credible.

I will take two rat pups out of the freezer tomorrow before I go to work (8am) and let them defrost beside the snake bins. When I get home (around 5pm) I'll put the pups in ziplock bags and warm them up in a cup of hot tap water like I do for my corn snake. I heard feeding BP's in a dark room at night can stimulate feeding so I'll feed them at 6pm with their container lid on and see if they go for it.

I will let you know if I am successful tomorrow on this thread. Hopefully, my second attempt will work!

Here are some pictures of their setup:

http://i.imgur.com/Px0y9S7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/oRqPknP.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NuOqBZa.jpg

So pretty.... I'm jealous. :bow:

Later on down the road when you get lazy like me, you can stick the frozen rat in lukewarm water to quickly defrost then stick it in the cup of hot water. Then you don't have to remember to defrost in the morning.

how long have you had them for? I don't even attempt to feed mine until I've had them for about a week, and if feeding day falls on less than seven days i don't really expect them to take it. It's still important to offer, but don't be alarmed if they refuse even up to five meals (I have one that likes to eat every 3 weeks). As mentioned before; don't boil your rats. I read your post as "I boiled two rat pups for 30 minutes" which I know can't be right, because boiling beef ribs for that long cooks them through, and rat pups at that point wouldn't even be recognizable. I leave my f/t rats to thaw at room temperature, finishing by placing them in lukewarm water just before offering. Also (and I don't think anyone has said this before) I would not move them to a separate tub to be fed. There's some debate around it, but I personally don't even touch my snakes on feeding day or too late the day before. Moving them into a new environment to eat is just too much excitement for a species already known to be finicky eaters. The feeding response isn't something to worry about with balls, and even getting bit doesn't hurt too bad (it bleeds a good deal, but it doesn't really hurt). Rat bites are much more unpleasant, believe me...

Lastly; just relax. If they're hungry they'll eat, and it may take them a while before they decide they want to. From what I understand, it's pretty rare to have a snake starve itself to death as long as you're offering proper food regularly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spikeanoid

So pretty.... I'm jealous. :bow:

Later on down the road when you get lazy like me, you can stick the frozen rat in lukewarm water to quickly defrost then stick it in the cup of hot water. Then you don't have to remember to defrost in the morning.

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lol That's a great idea! When I get comfortable with their feeding routine and feed them successfully for a few weeks I'll try doing that!

Again, thank you for your help everyone.

I am lucky I have these two beautiful BP's....it was almost not to be. I had originally purchased a "patternless" male mystic potion (no little white markings on its belly) and it had arrived the day before Halloween. Since I don't live near a big city with an airport, I arranged for my friend to pick up the snake for me and take it back home with her because she would be in the city anyway visiting relatives. Unfortunately, she wasn't going to get to the city until the day after the snake was due to arrive. I would have just rescheduled the shipping date but the breeder was going out of the country so the only date he could do it was the day before my friend arrived.

My friend said her brother could pick the snake up and keep it until she got it from him the next morning (she is experienced with snakes and her brother would have had it for literally less than 12 hours). The breeder wanted her brother to open the box at the cargo counter and text him to let him know that the snake arrived safely. He didn't follow instructions and didn't open the box until he got home, so the breeder called me in a panic wondering if everything went okay. Once I got a hold of the brother and established everything was fine with him and the breeder, I went to bed and thought nothing more of it...until I woke up to a series of messages the next morning stating that my snake died during the night. He didn't take the snake out of the box it was shipped in and a heat pack taped to the lid of the Styrofoam box "fell" on the snake during the night and literally cooked it to death. I was devastated and sickened when I saw the pictures. Fortunately, my friend and her brother wanted to make it right and gave me most of the money it cost me to buy & ship the snake so I could get another one from the same breeder.

I decided to make the journey myself so I could ensure my animal's safety. The breeder felt pretty bad too because there was nothing he or I could do about what happened from where we were. I had made huge efforts to maintain communication between us the entire time and put no blame on him for what happened since it was obviously not his fault at all. He offered to sell me another male mystic AND a female super mystic that was going to be a hold back with the male at a discounted price. I wasn't expecting to get two BP's but decided to go for it because she was very pretty too. So, what was an originally terrible situation ended on a positive note. I feel bad about what happened to the other snake and learned a very hard lesson from this experience.

Here are some pictures of the female super mystic I got. I am passionate about mojaves/mystics for some reason and just love her blue eyes!

http://i.imgur.com/PtlVQ8Y.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/1MfLrxV.jpg

I picked up my BP's last weekend on Saturday night (the 22nd) and settled them into their new bin homes on the 23rd. The pictures of me holding them was right after I got them home and had to pick them up to put them in their bins. I did not handle them after that and left them alone. I tried to feed them for the first time last night (Nov 30th). What I did was boil water on the stove and pour the boiling water into two ceramic mugs. I then took out the frozen rat pups, placed each in an individual ziplock bag, and put the bags containing the rat pups in the mugs to defrost. I had seen a BP keeper do this on a YouTube video. I waited 20-30 minutes for the rats to "defrost" before taking them out, placing them on paper towel, and lightly dabbing them dry with pieces of paper towel. They didn't feel hot or frozen but I wasn't really sure what they should have felt like at that time.

I then took my BP's out of their bins (one at a time) and placed them into a larger feeding bin. I tried to dangle the "thawed" rat pups on tongs but neither snake even attempted to strike.

I am starting to think my lack of success was due to 1) not correctly preparing the food and 2) the snakes still being new and my decision to put them in a separate feeding bin. I know BP's are notorious for being finicky eaters sometimes but as someone new to BP's, its easy to get worried when they don't eat. I will try to feed them tomorrow in their own bins and not move them. I don't blame them for getting stressed out and not eating last night - hopefully they will have today to calm down and be more receptive tomorrow.

I will try to relax...lol I do feel a lot better after getting some sound advice on what to do.

As daigga said, I wouldn't feed in a separate bin. I don't even do that with my 6ft red tail boa and she has a feeding response that rivals some retics imo. Imagine trying to move a 6-10 ft snake that is ready to eat anything that moves.....and your going to stick your arms in the feeding tub and try to remove them. Not to mention after a big meal and about an hour in the feeding tub to wait for their feeding response to go away, now you gotta pick up a very full snake that doesn't want to move. Nothing wrong with feeding in their cage as long as you socialize with the snakes a few times a week so they don't get conditioned to where cage door open=food.

Well, I tried feeding them again tonight with no luck. :(

I took the rat pups out of the freezer in the morning and left them to defrost in a ziplock bag between both snakes' bins. When I got home from work I filled a cup with warm tap water and placed the ziplock bag in the cup of warm water so the rat pups could warm up. I made sure the room was pretty dimly lit and did not move the snakes from their bins this time. I first tried to dangle the rat pup by the tail in the female's bin to see if she would react. She was in her hide and did not come out. I then slowly lifted up the hide and removed it from the bin so she could see the rat pup. She looked at it for a bit and edged toward it but didn't attempt to strike at it or show much interest beyond that. Instead, she moved to the back of her bin and slipped under the paper towel. I left the rat pup in the bin with her (in case she felt uncomfortable with me being in her line of sight) and closed the lid.

I decided to try the male and see if he would be more receptive. He showed even less interest than the female. I had to remove his hide because he didn't come out on his own. He sat coiled in a ball but did lift his head to look at the rat for a moment. However, he showed no interest in it beyond that so I left the rat pup in the bin with him and closed the lid.

So far, neither of them has taken the food. Am I still doing something wrong? When should I try to feed them again?

I was also thinking that they might not be used to my scent because I have only had them for about a week. Should I try handling them for a few minutes every day before trying to feed them again so they can get used to me or will that just stress them out even more?

I'd wait a week before attempting to feed again. Also keep handling to a minimal to let them get acclimated to their new surroundings some more. I wouldn't stress over it too much yet. :gj:

I am also new to BPs and am learning a lot from here. The one thing i learned was some BPs won't eat when they are going into shed. Ask the breeder when they shed last. When i got my little guy, i left him to acclumate for a week, then fed him, he ate a ft rat pup like a champ. The next week he refused any food, no intrest at all, so i left him alone till the next feeding day, turned out he was going into shed, because the day before his next feeding was due he shed. The next day he pounced on his food, and has eaten well since. My mistake was not asking the breeder when his last shed was. My corn will not eat for about 10 days during her shed.

It might not be anything your doing, Also I have found the hair dryer trick at the head works really great.

BPs are like pickey children. Every one is different and wants different things. My spider will not eat prekilled, fully live or frozen thawed the only way she will eat is to get the rat to the pointe where it is barley alive and leave it in front of her hide in a dark quiet room for about an hour. My pastel pos het pied will only eat live. All of the others dont seem to care how they are fed, they usually take them right off of the tongs. Just takes a lot of patience and experimenting to find what the individual snake wants.