All of a Sudden my Ball will not eat out of cage

If you buy mulch at a petstore than it is free or pesticides or pests or bacteria, but cypress repels pests just as pine and cedar do when used for pet hamsters, of course. I have used wet, moist, and dry cypress with my snakes no problems. One of my cousin's BP's swallowed a fairly large chunk of cypress with the butt of the mouse and that piece came out fine a few days later.

Right on ya it make sense that if they can eat bones and hair that mulch would not pose a problem for their systems. I find it kind of amazing that they are able to process the entire body of a mouse/rat and it comes out as if there were no bones at all.

We buy our aspen from WalMart and it's a really nice fine cut so we've never been concerned at all about feeding in their tubs. As others have said so well, if you have routines with the snakes and they are used to them, they don't seem to equate your hand entering their tub with an automatic offering of prey. We've always used hemostats with f/t or p/k prey anyway and now that we feed live, the live prey is put in the opposite side of the tank from wherever the snake is at so again they don't get much of anything but a flash of our hand as we pop in dinner in.

We handle all the snakes regularily and other than some aggressive behaviour from an adult female we adopted from a local pet store, we haven't had any issues with nipping. Our normal practise is to be pretty hands off though on feeding day as most of ours are raring to go that day and why set yourself and the snake up for a needless nip from a hungry snake (just our way though, not the "only" way). I do an early morning cage check on feeding day but that's about it for contact. Our little male, Malachi, will try to go for me on feeding day (only time he ever does that) but it's just his strong feeding response kicking in so that I don't really ever count as a problem. I actually see that as a bonus!


~~Jo~~

ya i thihk soon i am going to go back to the cypress mulch because my snake really seemed to like it..
As far as feeding goes, i also put the mouse on the complete other side then the snake is on and i take out smoe climbs abd hides so taht the snake can see the mouse better.; My snake is NEVER touched less then 48 hours after feed and i do not leave the room unless the snake has or has not eaten both mice. Im just glad that this does not make a differnece

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Originally Posted by DrEwTiMe

i take out smoe climbs abd hides so taht the snake can see the mouse better.

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Try leaving that stuff in there after "scenting" the room for 20 or 30 minutes. You'd be surprised how quickly they "see" the mouse after you introduce it to their cage.

On a side note... they don't see real well anyway... they use their tounge and heat sensing labial pits to smell/detect the warm rodent anyway. They'll find it.. (it's also safer for the snake to leave the hides in while you feed live)

Snake won't eat. I have been having a problem just like this. We have had our snake for about a year. He would eat once aweek with no problem but in the last month he seems for to be interested in the food at all just tries to get out of the feeding box. I have not tried food in his home.

ya, give it a try... :) it works really great!

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Originally Posted by ddbjdealer

Try leaving that stuff in there after "scenting" the room for 20 or 30 minutes. You'd be surprised how quickly they "see" the mouse after you introduce it to their cage.

On a side note... they don't see real well anyway... they use their tounge and heat sensing labial pits to smell/detect the warm rodent anyway. They'll find it.. (it's also safer for the snake to leave the hides in while you feed live)

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I get the mice in a carbord box from the pet store. Do you think it would be bett er for me to just leave the box in the cage for 20 mins or so and then release one into the cage?

Sorry for so many questions, i kinda new to the whole feeded in the cage thing.

Just leave the box of mice on top of the cage or if it's in an enclosed area, leave it in the room... I haven't tried, so I can't recommend, leaving the cardboard box INSIDE the cage.... might work.. but I haven't tried it.

Awsome, thanks for ur advice, all of you.