agressive ball python

He will be just fine. If anything, he will just be more hungry and more likely to eat. You can try live if you don't mind having a new pet if he doesn't eat :)

yea im gunna try live hopefully he will eat but if not i can try and keep him lol.

Brandon, you need to understand a bit more about these snakes I think.

These are shy, nocturnal, ambush predators. Most of us will tell you that attempting to feed a snake you've only had a week doesn't usually work anyways. They often need at least a week or more to settle in before they feel safe enough to hunt their prey.

They also need stable temperatures in order to thermoregulate for their health and to properly digest their prey. They need hides that are tight to fit their coiled up bodies and dark to allow them to feel safe inside the hide. They often use that hide to strike from (ambush predator) so feeding them inside their home enclosure is often recommended. A small ingestion of aspen will not normally cause any issues as their digestive acids are strong enough to fully digest bone, teeth and hair. If you keep their f/t prey dry it should not pick up an excessive amount of substrate.

A snake that is used to a certain type of prey and a certain style of feeding will key into that most often. Switching prey type or feeding style may cause the snake to either refuse to feed or to strike defensively at the prey and you. Especially when the snake has just been moved into a new home, it's best if you can stick to what this snake knows and once you and the snake are more comfortable, then you could consider changing things gradually.

A healthy ball python can easily go a few weeks without food as long as it has access to clean water. In the wild this is the norm for these snakes so their bodies can adjust to times when they are not eating. It's more of a concern, however, for very young snakes or snakes that are already in ill healthy or very underweight.

Do you have any idea how old this snake is or what it weighs? That's important information to help you further.

Before feeding live, please make sure you completely understand safe live feeding procedures. We'd be happy to help you with that and there are many threads here on the subject.

Please understand that this snake is simply acting like a snake. It does not have the intellect to understand these sudden changes in it's life. The only way it really can communicate it's stress to you is either by hissing or striking. It sounds to me like the strikes you are calling "aggressive" are really just the defensive striking out of a very stressed snake. Figure out what is causing the stress and you'll figure out what is triggering the strikes.

i remember when i got the snake they said it was 500 grams or w/e unit it is they use to weight snakes. they said he was a little over six months old and the breeder was going to breed him because he is half albino, but he decided to sell him to the store because i had requested a male normal because males don't get as large as females and normals are cheaper than others.

again they had said that they where feeding him small rats or a large mouse but i think that a large mouse would be a lot better because the small rat i tried to feed him seemed a little big for him. he stuck at it many many times after i started to move it around in the tub i had him in but he missed it or hit it and didn't grab on every time.

eventually i accidentally dropped the rat btw its F/T and when i went to pick it up he decided to strike at me idk if it was because he thought my hand was food or like you said stress.eventually i got him in his normal cage i just put a towl over him and got him in there.

i am ordering 2 hides and a slightly smaller water bowl from
www.reptilesupply.com plus a thermostat to keep the temps regular.

http://www.reptilesupply.com/product.php?products_id=35 is the hide

http://www.reptilesupply.com/product...oducts_id=1900 is the bowl

http://www.reptilesupply.com/product.php?products_id=75 is the thermostat

any one have any experience with this site and do you think these products will be okay

i will be ordering them sometime tomorrow.

and about feeding in the cage i have head that you should not feed in the normal cage ever. and that seems to make a lot of sense to me because if you feed him in the cage he may associate your hand with his food. okay well im off for the night than you for the advice guys and girls.

:)

There is no such thing as cage aggression, as you have noticed, you are more likely to get bit when you feed in a seperate enclosure. It is perfectly fine to feed in the home enclosure. I don't think any breeder is going to take each of their snakes out to feed them every week.
Your snake will not associate your hand with food. Your hand should have nothing to do with the feeding process. I always use tongs to feed, or just drop the mouse in their home enclosure. No hands necessary. Your hand does not look or smell like a mouse (normally) so why would they associate it with food?

I know my BPs get this hungry look on their faces when it is feeding day and I don't dare move them into another enclosure because I know they will strike at anything warm that enters the tub. They do not do this if they are not hungry. Simple as that.


As for the products you have picked out, they all look fine to me! That website should be fine to order from, I think I did at some point.

I agree - I always fed my prior snake live prey in her own cage and never had a problem with her. She was just as tame and docile as she was supposed to be. (she did get bit once, though, I think) I think she tagged hubby once, because he was dangling food and she missed. :) This time around I am going to get some food tongs before they move to bigger prey.
Just a recent observation that might help you - I got two baby balls, and they couldn't be more different in their eating styles so far! The one will snap-it-up right out of our hands while it's dangled. The other we have to put the prey in the cage and leave. It takes that snake at least 10-20 minutes to eat it. What I've done is taken a small teacup saucer and put the prey on that. That way it's not lying on the substrate. (Maybe I should get a silver one, LOL) Also, I read about some folks blow-drying their f/t prey and so I did that last night. It seemed to work very well. Not only did it help w/ heating up the prey, but then they weren't all wet from being thawed. More 'natural'.

i tryed feeding him live in the cage and he didn't eat a mouse at all he would come nose to nose with it and they just kind of sat there for a while he struck at it only once and missed... i ended up thumping one of the mice to try and see if he would eat fresh killed and he wouldn't eat that either yet he still trys to bite me as soon as i stick my hand in there and he has two hides one on the hot side and one on the cold and he always has fresh water the temp is about 75-85 lower being at night higher at day he is still very active at night and he just does not like me at all.... any one have any advice for me ? also he Rarely curls into a ball he just strikes...

Your temps are a little low. There needs to be 3 temp zones. And the temps should not change during the night. I would suggest taking a look at the bp caresheet as it can help to resolve some husbandry issues. Also, could you post some pics of your enclosure?

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but usually it is something simple related to the husbandry that causes this behavior in the snake. Or, it could just have a bad temper. :)

http://www.ball-pythons.net/modules/...warticle&id=59

yeah mine doesn't coil up either, just strikes. what's the length of yours?

btw place a cloth or gently tap on their head with a stick to get them out of strike mode.