new bp will only eat when fuzzies left in cage overnight? want to feed in speperte

Hi all as I said, I recently puchased a 160g 24in bp. The pet store told me to drop 2 fuzzies in:please: the tank weekly. So I come home and do what we all do, got online and started studying. One of the first things I read was to feed in separate container. I hav a rubbermaid like I have seen others use. My main ? Is temp controll overnight as she will only eat if I leave her food overnight. I also have a 10g aquarium? Or should I keep throwing themin her main habitat. Main? How do I entice her to take immediatly to eat and what temp in seperate container... thanks in advance new bp fanatic.

Ignore everything someone at a pet shop has told you, most of them don't care for snakes.

feeding a bp in a separate container can cause it stress so its best to feed it in its own cage.

how long have you had the bp for?

Whats your Temps, Humidity?

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Originally Posted by SRMD94

Ignore everything someone at a pet shop has told you, most of them don't care for snakes.

feeding a bp in a separate container can cause it stress so its best to feed it in its own cage.

how long have you had the bp for?

Whats your Temps, Humidity?

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There are many methods you can use to try and attract your ball to the rodent,
when your thawing/defrosting the rodent place it on a plate in the room where the ball is kept at let it thaw till room temperature... then get a hair/blow dryer and blow dry the scent of the rodent towards the balls cage till the rodents head is quite warm/hot

Then dangle the rodent down from above "zombie dance" if the ball takes no notice and goes into his hide then i would just throw the rodent away then try feeding him on the next scheduled feeding day

Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by SRMD94

Ignore everything someone at a pet shop has told you, most of them don't care for snakes.

feeding a bp in a separate container can cause it stress so its best to feed it in its own cage.

how long have you had the bp for?

Whats your Temps, Humidity?

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I agree, I asked to look at one and she says " get ready to get bit" and actually tried to talk me out of buying it. She opens the cage and hits it with the box and made it strike! When I got home I took my time with it and have not been struck nor hissd at. It is very docile and friendly. I bought 30*12*12 enclosure ,eco-earth, black and daylight ceramic lights, 3 temp and a humidity thermo., 2 hides, 2 live plants, and a longhorn shed to bask. My hot temp is90 right now and cool side is 80, humidity 52%. It will not become aggressive or cause bacteria feeding it in the cage as it will slide all over the fuzzy and lay there half the night? I woke up at 3#m last feeding and they were still there. But gone at 6 am. I hav had her 2 weeks now.

IMO, i wouldn't leave the rodent there for a long time but if its how he eats, then its how he eats...
your temps,humidity sounds fine, do you have any pictures of the his cage?

but as long as the ball is eating it should be Ok, when my ball doesn't strike i just leave the rodent in their for about 10 minutes in pitch black... if he hasn't had it then i just throw it away.

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Originally Posted by SRMD94

IMO, i wouldn't leave the rodent there for a long time but if its how he eats, then its how he eats...
your temps,humidity sounds fine, do you have any pictures of the his cage?

but as long as the ball is eating it should be Ok, when my ball doesn't strike i just leave the rodent in their for about 10 minutes in pitch black... if he hasn't had it then i just throw it away.

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I have plenty of snakes that will not eat right away, even if you leave it in the enclosure. I often leave a rodent or two in the tub overnight and if it isn't eaten by morning I remove it.

There is nothing wrong with doing this. If that is the only way the snake will eat then that is fine!

As for the separate feeding enclosure, it is completely 100% unnecessary. If it eats just fine in its home enclosure then why try to feed it elsewhere? Anything you have read about "cage aggression" due to feeding in the home enclosure is false. I (as well as most of the users on this site) feed in the home enclosure and none of us have witnessed "cage aggression".

And really if you think about it, it doesn't make sense. If you are trying to avoid being bitten, feeding in the home enclosure is the best route. When you move your snake to a new enclosure for feeding, you are only exposing the snake to your hands, giving it more opportunities to bite you.

Don't fix what isn't broken. Feed in the home enclosure and save yourself the trouble and save your snake the stress.

http:// https://www.youtube.com/watc...e_gdata_player

Yes I am new advice is nice!

As long as it's not live I see no problem leaving it overnight. As far as a second container, it's up to the snake mostly. Mine has been a garbage disposal, he will strike food in seconds in or out of his cage. But a lot of people have trouble getting them to eat. In the end it is probably best to just feed in his cage, less stress that way.

Agreed with what the others have said about feeding in a separate container being unnecessary and often frowned upon by most experienced keepers because of the stress it causes them. Cage aggression is a myth. Same goes with people who will claim feeding live makes them aggressive. I feed thousands of live rats to our snakes in their tubs every year and I have ZERO food/cage aggressive snakes.

One thing I feel I must touch on since it seems to be a very common problem. What kind of fuzzies are you feeding your ball? I really hope they are rat fuzzies because mouse fuzzies are far too small of a meal for a 160g ball. I will advise you, as well as most of the breeders/long term keepers, to get a small digital scale and feed your snake 10-15% of its body weight every week. Rats are preferred because they are slightly more nutritious and its easier to feed one appropriate sized rat vs multiple mice as your snake grows. As your snake becomes an adult you can cut back on the food a little since their metabolisms slow down (the exception would be for breeding, etc which I wouldn't worry about all that yet).

AKedit: It IS safe to leave live rat FUZZIES in your snakes container unsupervised. Anything larger than that is not because they can scratch and bite back. If you feed live, just use common sense. It's real simple and there are lots of threads on that subject if you use the search feature.

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Originally Posted by mackynz

As long as it's not live I see no problem leaving it overnight. As far as a second container, it's up to the snake mostly. Mine has been a garbage disposal, he will strike food in seconds in or out of his cage. But a lot of people have trouble getting them to eat. In the end it is probably best to just feed in his cage, less stress that way.

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Thanks ill keep doing what works but attempt to get her to eventually strike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfbQ...e_gdata_player

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

I have plenty of snakes that will not eat right away, even if you leave it in the enclosure. I often leave a rodent or two in the tub overnight and if it isn't eaten by morning I remove it.

There is nothing wrong with doing this. If that is the only way the snake will eat then that is fine!

As for the separate feeding enclosure, it is completely 100% unnecessary. If it eats just fine in its home enclosure then why try to feed it elsewhere? Anything you have read about "cage aggression" due to feeding in the home enclosure is false. I (as well as most of the users on this site) feed in the home enclosure and none of us have witnessed "cage aggression".

And really if you think about it, it doesn't make sense. If you are trying to avoid being bitten, feeding in the home enclosure is the best route. When you move your snake to a new enclosure for feeding, you are only exposing the snake to your hands, giving it more opportunities to bite you.

Don't fix what isn't broken. Feed in the home enclosure and save yourself the trouble and save your snake the stress.

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Thanks for your time. This is what I have so far

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfbQacuXTDQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Unfournantly yes,
Pet store idiots have me feeding two fuzzy mice.grrrr poor zeta. Would you suggest trying live and if so what size? Ty

try rat fuzzies :)

the rodent you feed should be 15% of your snakes body weight :)

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Originally Posted by jjcunaz

Unfournantly yes,
Pet store idiots have me feeding two fuzzy mice.grrrr poor zeta. Would you suggest trying live and if so what size? Ty

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You said your snake was 160g, right? Each fuzzy is probably in the 4-5g range, so both would equal 8-10g. That would equate to 1/3 to 1/2 of the amount of prey you should be feeding your snake. An appropriate sized prey item would be in the 16-24g range (10-15% of 160g). It may seem like a lot at first, but they are more than capable of eating even much larger than that without issue (although it isn't recommended). Following this feeding schedule is generally considered the standard for feeding ball pythons. Some folks alter it a little to their personal preferences (ie smaller meals more frequently, etc), but for a beginner this works best.

Live of f/t is up to you and your snake. Some balls will accept f/t without issue and if that works for you, all power to ya. Just keep an open mind because even the most seasoned f/t eater may require a live meal here or there or even decide to never eat f/t again and only want live. I feed live, personally. It isn't anything against f/t, but rather I have a lot of snakes and live is easier for me. We also breed our own feeders, so any meal that gets turned down is simply thrown back into its tub until next week. If you only have one snake or do not have a pet store close by to get live feeders from (and return if they refuse their meal) and don't want to deal with a feeder colony, f/t would be much easier.

Since yours already eats F/T it should but not definately be simple to convert to striking. I have a male that now all I do and all I ever did was dangle the F/T (not live) by the tail using tweezers or hemos. Now the female I have would not touch F/T and I tried by the tail and holding the mouse by the back to make it appear as if it was walking. I gave up and started live, after the first two feedings I noticed she would sit in one spot and watch the mouse both times as soon as the mouse touched her she grabbed it and coiled it up. So I tried the same with F/T the next feeding. I held the mouse by the back and made it walk around. Then I got near her and backed away, the second time I actually touched her with the mouse and she coiled it up and ate it. Two more times since then the same method caused her to strike and eat but no other method has worked. Also warming the F/T with a hairdryer to 95-100 seems to work best anything lower and mine wont touch it, you don't want to hot either.

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Originally Posted by BPLuvr

Since yours already eats F/T it should but not definately be simple to convert to striking. I have a male that now all I do and all I ever did was dangle the F/T (not live) by the tail using tweezers or hemos. Now the female I have would not touch F/T and I tried by the tail and holding the mouse by the back to make it appear as if it was walking. I gave up and started live, after the first two feedings I noticed she would sit in one spot and watch the mouse both times as soon as the mouse touched her she grabbed it and coiled it up. So I tried the same with F/T the next feeding. I held the mouse by the back and made it walk around. Then I got near her and backed away, the second time I actually touched her with the mouse and she coiled it up and ate it. Two more times since then the same method caused her to strike and eat but no other method has worked. Also warming the F/T with a hairdryer to 95-100 seems to work best anything lower and mine wont touch it, you don't want to hot either.

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I took your guys advice and let them thaw on top of cage. She stared sticking her hrad out.I heated the last two fz I had and used blowdryer. I zombied it in front and instantly she struck and missed. I dropped it bye acc. When I grabbed the tail and went to pick it back up, she slammed it and it was down in two min.
Swallowed it tail first, but it seemed fine.

The second fz was heated and I was zombie ie vertically and she struck and nailed it but again started to swallow backward. The hips didn go in smooth like the first. The hind legs were lodged. I didn't know what to do I was worried because when it finally went down it was upsidedown,backwards,and sideways.. it went down and zeta started like stickimg her neck up about 8 in and was shaking and pressing her head on the glass for what seemed a lifetime. She finally calmed down and went back inside. I hope she is ok and widd def fake walk next feeding with a much larger meal. Thamks guys I can't be any happier and have an awesome snake!!! And also she took it in cold side hide, should I move my light to that side orleave it to her to move where she wants to be. Many thanks to all

Congrats on getting her to strike! As for the lights, just leave them where they are. She will go where she wants and right now she feels like being in the cool side.

congrats man, and when my ball eats he goes the cool side... then he will eventually go the warm side just so leave him/her

I read the whole thread for the first time just now and I have a genuine smile on my face. This is why this forum is such a great place! A new owner posed a question that was answered by multiple people. The OP then took the advice of the people on the forum and - voila! - problem solved. Too cool.

I am glad that what you did worked! Don't worry about the animal going in head or butt first, as they end up in the same place and are digested just the same. Also, the reason that she was acting funny after eating the second one was likely due to her still wanting more! They will often take a second or third item if the first one/ones didn't fill them up. Example: My wife fed our 3 balls on Sunday. When one didn't eat another happily took that one's rat as well as well.

Best of luck with your new snake and I hope you learn a lot from the people on the site. There is definitely a wealth of experience here to draw from.

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Originally Posted by gsarchie

I read the whole thread for the first time just now and I have a genuine smile on my face. This is why this forum is such a great place! A new owner posed a question that was answered by multiple people. The OP then took the advice of the people on the forum and - voila! - problem solved. Too cool.

I am glad that what you did worked! Don't worry about the animal going in head or butt first, as they end up in the same place and are digested just the same. Also, the reason that she was acting funny after eating the second one was likely due to her still wanting more! They will often take a second or third item if the first one/ones didn't fill them up. Example: My wife fed our 3 balls on Sunday. When one didn't eat another happily took that one's rat as well as well.

Best of luck with your new snake and I hope you learn a lot from the people on the site. There is definitely a wealth of experience here to draw from.

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I agree and apologize for type o-s I'm on my phone and it trips. Anyway thanks to everyones input without any rude comments. This site I give 5*

When you start feeding appropriately sized prey the odds of him taking it down backwards lessens a lot. Not to say it won't ever happen but when they are eating the right size, its much easier to eat it head first!

sounds like you are getting squared away!

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

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Originally Posted by jbean7916

When you start feeding appropriately sized prey the odds of him taking it down backwards lessens a lot. Not to say it won't ever happen but when they are eating the right size, its much easier to eat it head first!

sounds like you are getting squared away!

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

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Thanks for the input one last ? I just want to give my bal the most comfortable habitat possible. So I have an under tank heater, red and black reptile bulbs both in ceramic and a 70 watt hps. As of now I use 70w hps during day and black at night. It it going to bother her with that bright light on all day. My temps are good on both sides and humidity as well. To simplify what's the best lighting setup

I dont use any artificial lighting for my balls. They are in a room with windows so they get some natural light. If your room is warm enough to ditch the lights, I would. Those things suck humidity anyway. I keep my room at 78-80 with the help of an oil heater.

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Originally Posted by jbean7916

I dont use any artificial lighting for my balls. They are in a room with windows so they get some natural light. If your room is warm enough to ditch the lights, I would. Those things suck humidity anyway. I keep my room at 78-80 with the help of an oil heater.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

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sweet ill check into that...so you have a room speific room for your snakes. ?

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Originally Posted by jjcunaz

sweet ill check into that...so you have a room speific room for your snakes. ?

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Yeah, my snakes have their own room for the racks and the incubator (well they share with the roaches I guess) and my sulcata tort and beardie have a room they share

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I just saw the update and congrats on getting the strikes. When you heat with the blow dryer after heating the whole mouse/rat warm the head a little extra. This should hopefully get them to hit the head on the strike. Last night I thought my male was going to fly up and out of his tub he hit (well missed) so fast and quickly. The reason why is beacuase I didn't heat enough then I lowered more into his tub and he missed again. When he finally hit he grabbed it by the rear feet. It took a little while but he released then spun around and finally found the head to swallow.

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Originally Posted by BPLuvr

I just saw the update and congrats on getting the strikes. When you heat with the blow dryer after heating the whole mouse/rat warm the head a little extra. This should hopefully get them to hit the head on the strike. Last night I thought my male was going to fly up and out of his tub he hit (well missed) so fast and quickly. The reason why is beacuase I didn't heat enough then I lowered more into his tub and he missed again. When he finally hit he grabbed it by the rear feet. It took a little while but he released then spun around and finally found the head to swallow.

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That worked perfect for me. Thanks for the advice, I felt like a kid at christmas when she took the first one! The speed is amazing, I'm trying to find a close age she is 24 in 160g and looks young to me. Any idea? Also I have a longhorn shed on hot side for hide it absorbs heat and she loves to hide in it and the only problem is I can't get her out of it until she's ready. Is it cool to just change the hide? I was thinking of cutting the closed end so I can get her out?

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Originally Posted by jbean7916

I dont use any artificial lighting for my balls. They are in a room with windows so they get some natural light. If your room is warm enough to ditch the lights, I would. Those things suck humidity anyway. I keep my room at 78-80 with the help of an oil heater.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

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Your funny, share with the roaches. Nice collection, "one now snake obssessed bf." They are addicting!!! Many thanks