^ this ^Quote:
Originally Posted by redshepherd
First thing is to add black paper to 3 sides of your tank, and also to add some more "cover" and security inside your tank such as a ton of fake leaves and more small hides with only one opening. Young ball pythons particularly need a lot of places to hide themselves completely and feel surrounded and squished up, in order to feel comfortable enough to eat food. Wide open spaces like what you have now (common with new owners) tend to make many hatchlings fail at eating, fail at feeling comfortable enough to eat. Hides that have too many openings or big openings are also not ideal.
Some ball pythons are pigs and will eat anyway, but some are more finicky and want to feel that security/cluttered setup. So it's best to give them the most ideal setup to begin with.
I would also stick to feeding mice for now, since that's what he was eating before- either a hopper or a small mouse, and feed at least 3 meals of this. Avoid handling him at all at this time, until he finishes this 3 meal process.
I wouldn't try to switch him to rats until he's eating consistently for you, especially when he was also eating LIVE before, which will make it more difficult, depending on the individual snake.
The snake is currently already under stress with their retained shed, and the wide open setup, so you want to make the setup as ideal for the species as possible to get him to eat. And avoid handling him completely unless absolutely necessary.
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