Sigh. He's a diva.

Ok just a few thing I see that I would suggest. First off the small weight loss was probably the urates. Second I would take some black construction paper and cover the sides and back of the tank. Third if you haven't tried live and he's looking healthy (witch he dose) I would not go to the vet... Another method I use with my pickets eater was a live rat pup in a small Tupperware container over night. This picky eater was born 3/14 and just hit the 250g Mark.now the last month he has not refused a meal. How are you heating the feeder up? Are you sure it is hot enough. And have you ever tried a different substrate ? I have broken 7 month fast by simple changing his tank from paper towel to eco earth. Don't worry so much as they can go a long time with out food. Keep handling sessions to a bare minimum until it eat a few times. And only offer once a week.

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Originally Posted by frostysBP

Ok just a few thing I see that I would suggest. First off the small weight loss was probably the urates. Second I would take some black construction paper and cover the sides and back of the tank. Third if you haven't tried live and he's looking healthy (witch he dose) I would not go to the vet... Another method I use with my pickets eater was a live rat pup in a small Tupperware container over night. This picky eater was born 3/14 and just hit the 250g Mark.now the last month he has not refused a meal. How are you heating the feeder up? Are you sure it is hot enough. And have you ever tried a different substrate ? I have broken 7 month fast by simple changing his tank from paper towel to eco earth. Don't worry so much as they can go a long time with out food. Keep handling sessions to a bare minimum until it eat a few times. And only offer once a week.

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Alright, I'll try taking the construction paper to the tank. The way I heat up his feeders is by a blow dryer and I double check their temps to be around 98 and the head at around 100-105 with the ir gun. Are rat pups at the age where they could give him a serious bite? I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable leaving him alone with it. I'm also a little concerned with what I could change his substrate to. I have him on the carpet because I live in a really humid climate and now without the ceramic heat emitter his humidity may get a bit too high. Any suggestions on what I could change it too that wouldn't make the humidity skyrocket?

Aspen shavings. When I say rat pups I men rats that haven't opened their eyes yet and they won't harm they snake.

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This may or may not be a factor in your situation, but you said he is nearing a year old. I recently went through a 4 week refusal period with my guy (which I never did fully figure out the reason behind) and he was exhibiting some of the same behaviors you mentioned. What stood out to me in particular was that you said he seems more concerned with coming out and exploring than eating. This is exactly what my guy was doing. Normally he would have his head poking out of his hide at feeding time and I could just dangle the rat and he would nail it. During his refusal period he would wake up and immediately start climbing the walls (literally). He seemed so focused on wandering the tank that even when I had a rat right in front of him he would pay no attention, even slithering directly over the top of it to get to the other side of his tank at times. He would also immediately start to try to slither up my arm or out of the enclosure when I reached in to feed him. Someone on here suggested it may be breeding behavior. It is not uncommon for ball pythons to go off feed during breeding season. This person pointed out that even though technically it is not breeding season right now, in the wild they rely on temperature cues (how low the temps get at night for instance) to know when it is breeding season. Since we keep them at stable temps in captivity they have no good cues to judge by and pretty much make their best guess and start looking for a mate almost at random, but often around 1 year of age (though this varies some). If there was a cold front recently or for some reason his temps in the tank changed right before this started it could have something to do with it.

That being said, I would definitely keep the belly heat. Kudos on use of a thermostat, love seeing responsible and well educated keepers! Also it is wise to cover the 3 sides of the tank, simply because you can never have too much security for them and you may as well rule it out as a reason. Your snake will thank you for the added privacy. Like I said, I don't know what did it for my guy. I just kept offering each week and sure enough after about a month and a shed he ate and has been going strong ever since. It may well have been a breeding/hormonal thing though. One other tip, as strange as it sounds, you could try dipping the rats head in tuna juice before blow drying it. Sometimes the added scent will provoke a stronger feeding response. I did have some difficulty with my guy shortly after getting him home. I used the tried the tuna juice scenting just on the off chance that it might make a difference and it sure seemed to get him eating steadily. It may have been a coincidence, but I have heard a few different people confirm success with this method. If you have some canned tuna (in water) lying around, try draining the juice into a cup or ziplock bag and use it to scent it next time you feed. Who knows, it may help.

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Originally Posted by kiiarah

This may or may not be a factor in your situation, but you said he is nearing a year old. I recently went through a 4 week refusal period with my guy (which I never did fully figure out the reason behind) and he was exhibiting some of the same behaviors you mentioned. What stood out to me in particular was that you said he seems more concerned with coming out and exploring than eating. This is exactly what my guy was doing. Normally he would have his head poking out of his hide at feeding time and I could just dangle the rat and he would nail it. During his refusal period he would wake up and immediately start climbing the walls (literally). He seemed so focused on wandering the tank that even when I had a rat right in front of him he would pay no attention, even slithering directly over the top of it to get to the other side of his tank at times. He would also immediately start to try to slither up my arm or out of the enclosure when I reached in to feed him. Someone on here suggested it may be breeding behavior. It is not uncommon for ball pythons to go off feed during breeding season. This person pointed out that even though technically it is not breeding season right now, in the wild they rely on temperature cues (how low the temps get at night for instance) to know when it is breeding season. Since we keep them at stable temps in captivity they have no good cues to judge by and pretty much make their best guess and start looking for a mate almost at random, but often around 1 year of age (though this varies some). If there was a cold front recently or for some reason his temps in the tank changed right before this started it could have something to do with it.

That being said, I would definitely keep the belly heat. Kudos on use of a thermostat, love seeing responsible and well educated keepers! Also it is wise to cover the 3 sides of the tank, simply because you can never have too much security for them and you may as well rule it out as a reason. Your snake will thank you for the added privacy. Like I said, I don't know what did it for my guy. I just kept offering each week and sure enough after about a month and a shed he ate and has been going strong ever since. It may well have been a breeding/hormonal thing though. One other tip, as strange as it sounds, you could try dipping the rats head in tuna juice before blow drying it. Sometimes the added scent will provoke a stronger feeding response. I did have some difficulty with my guy shortly after getting him home. I used the tried the tuna juice scenting just on the off chance that it might make a difference and it sure seemed to get him eating steadily. It may have been a coincidence, but I have heard a few different people confirm success with this method. If you have some canned tuna (in water) lying around, try draining the juice into a cup or ziplock bag and use it to scent it next time you feed. Who knows, it may help.

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Thanks for your reply and suggestions. Thursday was feeding day again and to no avail. Completely ignored the rat and crawled out onto me. He curled around my hand and just settled right down for a good 10-15 minutes. He was calm for a little while after I put him back in and then he was back to trying to find his way out at the top again. I've noticed that he's been waking up about an hour earlier since I covered the sides of the tank but I'm figuring that's because the tank was made darker due to the covering. His behavior sounds a lot like you described for your little guy. He wakes up and is immediately go go go. Usually he's kinda lazy about waking up, poking his head out of his hide for at least two to three hours before dusk and then once it's completely dark he's coming out to poke around not insistent on getting out of the tank. Now that you mention it, it was pretty cool when he was going into shed. I called the vet to ask for advice and they mentioned soaking him to help encourage him to eat but I've never heard of this and I'm honestly not too keen on trying it because I don't see how that would make a difference in his eating and he doesn't seem to like dipping himself in water too much anyway. I still catch him drinking water and he's still passing urates. Weighed him again yesterday and he is at 205g. The vet also said this wasn't the time that males go off feed for breeding and was suggesting I bring him in to see if there were underlying health problems or parasites. When I've seen his stool there were no signs of any parasites so I doubt that would be a cause and as I've mentioned previously I'm being hyper sensitive about getting a look at his nostrils and vents and there's no mucus or saliva. No wheezing or popping from his breathing either. I'll try giving the tuna juice a go this coming Thursday and see how it goes. If he doesn't seem interested I'm gonna brain the thing and see if there's a difference then. I tried to find a live rat from the store I buy his feeders from but they don't carry any that small so I'll have to go looking somewhere else if I wanna attempt a live.

Wish I could calm down about him but I'm worrying a lot. He's my first snake and I don't know what else I could be doing wrong for him. Guess I'm more stressed because I'm not used to a pet who only eats once a week where as most other animals who even miss a day or two of meals is a cause for worry.

How big is the tank?. I'm sure that snake was in a rack before you got it probably no bigger than 12qt. That's another thing to think of. Did u ask the breeder what he was feeding it on? I would do anything you can to get a live mouse or rat pup. mouse hoppers are sometimes the best

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Originally Posted by frostysBP

How big is the tank?. I'm sure that snake was in a rack before you got it probably no bigger than 12qt. That's another thing to think of. Did u ask the breeder what he was feeding it on? I would do anything you can to get a live mouse or rat pup. mouse hoppers are sometimes the best

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His tank is 12w x 30l x 18h. She told me he was on large rat fuzzies. I figured that would be a rat pup. What I've been offering him are pups that are around 20-24g.

Did she say live or f/t

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I would offer a smaller live options before you go to a vet, sometimes that's an easy fix. I've got two 2015 short tails right now about that size and the female eats great, strikes immediately, the male wants it left in his hide, ate great the first couple weeks f/t rat pups than refused, took a f/t mouse, refused either for two weeks, I offered some hopper mice live and he snatched them right up, ate live the next week great. I'll continue to offer live for a few weeks, get him eating regularly and then try to go back to f/t.

The soaking recommendation may also help. The rationale on that is you need to replace the fluid loss b4 you replace the solids. Feeding a dehydrated animal is not the route to take to bring the bp up to regular feedings. Actually the soaking worked in my case just for the record. I know you said you've seen him drinking but we all know bp's really don't drink water that much. They do absorb fluids through the cloaca and actually the cloaca is like a mini sponge hence this is why your vet recommended the soaking. Hydrating him will go a long way. Next, ditch the carpet. It looks nice but you should switch to 100% cypress mulch to help him get back to feeding. There is a great article by The East Coast Reptile Breeders titled " The Enigmatic Ball Python Appetite" by Colin Weaver. He talks there about the benefits of 100% cypress mulch on non feeding ball pythons. Immediately go and check out his article! Good luck. Hope this helps! :gj: :gj: