How long has your bp gone off feed for?

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Originally Posted by greghall

:mad:GOT ALL BUT TWO BACK ON,BEEN OFF SINCE EARLY JANUARY .ONE GIRL MAY BE GRAVID THE OTHER IS ON THE 1000g FAST:mad:

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1000 gram fast ? whats that ? I bought 1100 gram girl in early Jan. She ate 1 time and hasnt eaten since. She was 1100g when I bought her and is 1000 now.

Ive talked to alot of BP keepers & breeders & they can go off feed anywhere from 750g to 1000g for no reason,when I first got mine they would eat good for a few meals than stop,Its frustrating but thats what they do,it don't bother me anymore except when your trying to get a nice female pastel up to size for breeding next year!!!:mad:

Is it worse if a younger ball (like age between 6 months to a year) stops eatting?

Also what are the ages of everyones balls that are going off food for long periods of time?

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Originally Posted by van_garret2000

Is it worse if a younger ball (like age between 6 months to a year) stops eatting?

Also what are the ages of everyones balls that are going off food for long periods of time?

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yes it is. it is normally adults that go off feed because of breeding season. But its okay if young ones go off feed as long as they don't begin to lose weight, which could hint at some kind of sickness.

I wouldn't worry too much if you have a male that goes off feed between fall and spring.

I have a 10 year old male that I've had since he was a hatchling. Starting from age 2-ish he refuses to eat between late October and early April (he's gone to May before). He loses a little weight, but as long as I'm maintaining his temps/humidity/light cycles I know that it's him and not me.

It's hard not to stress out about, but now that I've experienced the same thing year after year it's finally sunken in that a reptiles metabolism is very different from mammals!

I said "other" for me. Jakey went 16 days. I'm told that's OK, however, with him eating twice a week at the store, that kind of scared me some. We've had him a week and he's ate once for me. I haven't had him long enough to really know.........

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Originally Posted by joshn6805

yes it is. it is normally adults that go off feed because of breeding season. But its okay if young ones go off feed as long as they don't begin to lose weight, which could hint at some kind of sickness.

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Yeah i always hear "as long as they don't lose weight". What are you supposed to do if they lose weight?

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Originally Posted by pythontricker

oh please explain if you put more/other.

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I have a 2005 66% pos Het lav albino male that went off food for 14 mos. He was offered every week during that time, he was offered rats, mice and ASF...nothing worked...I put him in a smaller tub, did the paper ball trick and still nothing....All of a sudden after 14 mos of no food, he took a rat wean...now its been about a year and he's eaten everything that he is offered each week....weird.

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Originally Posted by greghall

Ive talked to alot of BP keepers & breeders & they can go off feed anywhere from 750g to 1000g for no reason,when I first got mine they would eat good for a few meals than stop,Its frustrating but thats what they do,it don't bother me anymore except when your trying to get a nice female pastel up to size for breeding next year!!!:mad:

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I track our ball pythons weight every month for several years (I'm a data freak) and have found exactly what you're saying. Between 750 and 1100 grams many females stop ating and growing for several months. Not all, just many. I know it's not, but it seems like it is usually those very cool new morphs that I'm trying to get up to breeding size. :mad:

We've had ours for almost 2 years and he seems to have done the same thing... he was just under 1000g, then stopped eating the middle of November and just took his first meal last week.

Thankfully he ate again this week, and during the whole time he only lost about 50g total, so I wasn't too worried. It did make us a bit baffled since he's never had a single problem before this.

Good to hear it's somewhat normal anyway. :)