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  • 07-29-2016, 10:05 AM
    cchardwick
    Re: Ball Python not eaten once since november
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by LiamPatrick View Post
    Thank you for the tip. it is definately something that i will consider once i see how often he will take from me, i need to up the size of rat again but might still hold off a while and just give him a slow stream of smaller ones.

    another thing is that im not too bothered about how much i will spend on missed feeds, ive thrown away about 40 weeks worth of rats on his refusing so i think if i can even get him eating half a pack and half get thrown then that will be a win.

    Glad he finally started eating for you again! I find there's an advantage to having more than one snake. I'm up to 18 snakes so far, I usually do fresh kill, but I prepare just enough rodents for a little over half of the snakes. If one or more don't eat I don't have to throw away a rodent, I just give it to another snake. I usually offer to my picky eaters first knowing they may refuse a meal, then move on to my greedy ones that will eat anything. I have an adult male Australian Woma python who hasn't eaten since I got him several months ago, still has great body condition though. I usually try to feed him first knowing that he will probably refuse it, in fact I expect him not to eat and prepare only enough for those who will eat. Then if I run short I can prepare a few more. The advantage of fresh killed is that I can freeze them if they are not eaten and try again, but there is probably more maintenance cleaning and feeding the rodents than cleaning and feeding the snakes. But in the long run you do save money if you buy rodent food from the feed store (less than $10 per 50 pounds for most stuff like cracked and whole corn).

    I just picked up a juvenile dwarf reticulate python, his main purpose is to be my 'garbage disposal' for all the mice and rats that no one else will eat. I also have a full size CA king snake that will take anything too small for the retic. Personally if I were you I'd consider getting another non-ball python that is a greedy feeder to use up all your wasted rats, maybe something like a super dwarf retic.

    I used to do frozen thawed but found I was throwing out a lot of thawed out non-eaten rodents. Then I moved to breeding my own rats, ASFs, and mice. Fresh kill (with CO2) is nice because you can freeze them if they are not eaten and save them for another day. I also end up with breeder rats that are too big for my ball pythons or when I'm raising up breeders I get some extra males that get too big before I can sex them. So I got the retic to eat all the extra stuff. For awhile there I was just giving away all my jumbo rats to the feed store for free because they were too big for even my biggest snake. Now I can actually put them to use, although my 'dwarf' retic is actually going to turn into a big monster! LOL

    Personally I would try a live large rat pup with eyes still closed on picky eaters that are refusing frozen thawed. The problem is that if you don't breed rats they don't last very long without their mom so you'd need a CO2 setup to put them 'in storage' in the freezer if they were not eaten. Or maybe you can find a breeder of rats nearby and return the rat pup if it's still alive and not eaten. I find that almost all of my ball pythons that are picky will immediately eat a live rat pup and there's no danger of getting bitten like there is with live mice (I don't feed live mice anymore). The problem I'm having right now is keeping a continual supply of rat pups of the right size, I just grew up a few more breeders so I can breed one rat every week for 6-8 weeks, should get new rat pups every week and have a variety of sizes to choose from at any given point. The extras will be put in the freezer or grown up a bit for my retic.

    One thing I was always worried about when feeding frozen thawed is that I may accidently feed a rodent that it still cold on the inside. That may turn an eager feeder into a picky eater. I don't have to worry about that with fresh killed.
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