Ball python dumped at an animal hospital and wont eat

I am a veterinary technician and a client dumped their ball python at our animal hospital we where treating it for a RI and the owner never picked it up. The snake was loosing weight and refusing food ( it was also full of parasites) All of its medical issues have been taken care of and it looks better but we cant get it to eat and have had to force feed him (please only let a veterinarian or very experienced herpeculturalist do this). This obviously is not a good thing and we need to get him to eat we have tried all the methods for feeding f/t pinkies and none work. The pets stores around only sell adult mice and I think they are too big for him (he's only 61g). If anyone has any ideas on things we can try I would love to hear them. I have never had this much difficulty getting a snake to eat in 15 years as a tech.

Where are you keeping the snake? Ball pythons are extremely shy and won't eat if they don't feel secure.

He is in a 10 gallon cage with 2 identical hides one in the hot, one in the cool end. The hot end is kept at 90 degrees by a UTH and the humidity is at a constant 60% the ambient temp is around 78-82 degrees.

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Originally Posted by BabysMomma

Where are you keeping the snake? Ball pythons are extremely shy and won't eat if they don't feel secure.

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This is very true.
They prefer small, private enclosures. At 61 grams he obviously isnt an established eater so I would keep him in a 6 quart tub, max and get his warm temps at around 93 and cool side no lower than 84 degrees. Also the smallest you should feed him is a live mouse hopper or rat pink. Either one can be left with him overnight as they are completely harmless to the snake. They usually dont eat while on antibiotics and for a hatchling that guy has been through ALOT so it may take a while. I also reccomened assist feeding over force feeding, it is much less stressful and lets him use some of his natural instincts. Pinky mice are way too small. I feed hatchlings either mouse hoppers or pinkie rats for their first meal.

Heat and security are the most important.

Alternative to the tub, you could try filling the enclosure you've got with crumpled newspaper and leave a rat pinkie in there for him to hunt for. The newspaper lets him feel something on all sides of his body at all times, and will make him feel more comfortable.

Well the reason that we have force fed is because he was so week and malnurished you can see his spine and we had to get extra fat and nutrition into him and use a formula that the doctor makes up he is not anywhere near that thin anymore and we need to get him to eat on his own now. When this has happened before with other snakes they usually start up quickly on their own. He is difficult even for a ball.

Wow that blows, thanks for taking care of it.

You have to put him in a small enclousure, BPs dont like to be out in the open. They like to be hiding somewhere small and sometimes tight.

For a BP that small try a 6qt tub, or maybe a 14-15qt tub. But if it's not even eating, try a 6qt first. Leave it alone for a few days, dont even touch him. It will need a hot side around 90-93.

A BP hatchling will eat about every 5 days when settled in.

Have you tried feeding him live yet, Usually even a finicky eater will be more apt to take a love. Also have you tried the tricks of prescenting his enclosure. Or something I have had to do is put the mouse in a brown paper bag and put some leaves in their to scent the mouse.

I would cover all sides and leave him alone for a week then try. Babies usually will only eat live for the first few feedings! I would try a mouse fuzzy! They like hair on them, most won't reconize a pinkie as food in my experience!

Yeah I want to try live but I am having a hard time finding fuzzies there arent any pet shops around except for petco and petsmart and they get a little b@#%hy if you tell them what its for and they only have adults. I am looking for other pet store to try and buy live if anyone knows anyplaces around dallas let me know.
Thanks for all the feed back. I just want to do what's best for this guy.

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Originally Posted by ed4281

Yeah I want to try live but I am having a hard time finding fuzzies there arent any pet shops around except for petco and petsmart and they get a little b@#%hy if you tell them what its for and they only have adults. I am looking for other pet store to try and buy live if anyone knows anyplaces around dallas let me know.
Thanks for all the feed back. I just want to do what's best for this guy.

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Petsmart gives their mice medicines and vaccinations, which could be dangerous to the reptile, so try to stick to Petco.

Petco specifically sells their mice as feeders.
Put the snake into a 6qt tub with belly heat (warm side around 90-95) and one really good snug hide. (no log hides)
Go to Petco, and look at the mice and try to pick out the smallest one you can find. Even if it's a bit of a big meal, I think he can handle it as long as it's not huge.
I am feeding one of my youngest balls small rat pups. Those are bigger than most mice I get from Petco and she's only about 100-110g.

Other than pet stores, try searching for an "exotic" pet stores.

Mind you I dont know the area around Dallas, but I did a google search;
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=...6c7832dbb01be6

And this is one of the stores that came up (just an example);
http://www.reptilecity.com/Merchant2...ry_Code=Python

A corporate pet store like petco, etc is not realy a good place to find LIVE feeder mice and/or rats. Always search for a local "reptile" and/or "exotic" pet store.

Thanks for everyones advice however George ( the ball pyhton that was dumped) has died.

Im sorry :tears:

Did he ever eat?

No he never did on his own and we finally had to euthanise him he just kept loosing weight, it was pretty hard to watch and we just couldnt let it go on any longer. Thanks for your advice though I tried all the tricks mentioned. I even tracked down a hopper Gerbil to try to give him but he just wouldn't eat. I now have a pet gerbil though.