??? about my normal ball size

yeah.. well i live in ames.. and the vet/breeder i was talking bout lives in des moines..

There has been polls done on feeding in or out of their enclorsure and most people with experience agree of feeding it their enclosure. That is a personal choice but it's alot of hassle for no extra benefit!

My snake moves side to side, shakes his head and body back and forth slightly, and will even push the mouse against the ground to force it into its mouth. Snakes do weird things when they eat, and sometimes it takes a while.

And just think about the idea of cage aggression for a minute -- you have a ball python that is basically genetically engineered to be a mouse killer. It's NOT going to confuse you for a mouse unless you smell like one. Your heat signature and smell are nothing like a rodent's, and your hand certainly doesn't look the same.

That's not all, either. I don't know about anyone else, but I feed my snake every 5-7 days, and I generally handle every day except feeding day and the day after. That's 3-5 days a week I'm opening his cage to handle him, and 1 day that I'm opening it to feed him. He probably associates cage opening with "Oh god, this idiot's about to pick me up" more often than "MOUSE? MOUSE! MOUSE!!"