Not Eating

Alright, my bp suddenly stopped eating. I got him in April, he was lost until May (little sisters...) so he had nearly a 5 week fast. The breeder was feeding him live every 2 weeks, you guys on here said to try every week and get him on rats. He ate two mouse hoppers, then I offered a rat fuzzy that he refused 3 weeks ago. He hasn't eaten since... I went back to mouse hoppers and he won't eat them. I did move to a new apartment, but his temps are all the same, he has a heating pad thermostated to 92, two separate identical hides, and a water dish.

I feed him in a separate KK covered in a towel for privacy. When I peek in to watch, he'll be looking at the mouse but when the mouse moves towards his face he recoils and then starts looking for a way out. I leave him in there supervised for at least 15 minutes to give him a solid chance.

I don't know much about snake behavior but I think I should try a f/t baby rat and zombie dance so that he doesn't get spooked like with the live ones.

Any other ideas?

I would suggest feeding him in his enclosure. Some BPs don't tolerate the whole feeding in a separate enclosure thing, and there is no need to do it anyway.

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Originally Posted by FireStorm

I would suggest feeding him in his enclosure. Some BPs don't tolerate the whole feeding in a separate enclosure thing, and there is no need to do it anyway.

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not entire true. they are less likely to strike at you when in their enclosure if you feed them in a separate container. Also, feeding them in the same container as their enclosure might make them accidentally swallow substrate along with their meal.

entirely*

Anyways, ball pythons sometimes go for months without eating, so it might not be anything to worry about. I found an awesome list of things you can do to help your ball feed somewhere on worldofballpythons.com
They have a ton of good info and vids.
Hope this helps :)

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Originally Posted by alykoz

not entire true. they are less likely to strike at you when in their enclosure if you feed them in a separate container. Also, feeding them in the same container as their enclosure might make them accidentally swallow substrate along with their meal.

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Swallowing some aspen is not going to kill them. In fact my snakes get some on their rats in the enclosure. Security is what gets most snakes to eat, and that security of the known environment in the cage is the best thing for them.

If you're worried about substrate, swap over with paper towels. It is highly unlikely that they'd get a paper towel down before you could do something about it.

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He tolerated it just fine twice. I really believe if I feed in the enclosure I have a much higher chance of being struck at in the future.

I'm not really worried about him being healthy at this point, I know he can go quite awhile without food. But I just can't figure out why he isn't... I thought it might be shed because he hasn't shed at all since I got him (unless he did while he was out and about in the house).

So that's my second worry is that he hasn't shed at all.

I'd try to convince you that it's not the case, and that any time you get struck at its probably your fault for not being careful. However, it seems you've made up your mind about this.

It's not like that, just keep that in mind.

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Originally Posted by alykoz

not entire true. they are less likely to strike at you when in their enclosure if you feed them in a separate container. Also, feeding them in the same container as their enclosure might make them accidentally swallow substrate along with their meal.

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It is a myth that feeding in the enclosure causes aggression. If anything, moving them to feed them increases your chances of a bite because you are handling the snake while in feeding mode. Our collection is decent sized (35 breeding females, 16 breeding males, plus holdbacks and hatchlings...easily well over 100 animals when babies are hatching, sometimes closer to 200 depending on how quickly babies sell). Everybody eats in their enclosure, and nobody is aggressive. Even when we have live rodents in the room (we don't feed everybody on the same day, so sometimes we are cleaning enclosures, palpating, etc, while other snakes are eating). Typically, even our maternally incubating females are pretty mellow.

As far swallowing substrate, I have had zero problems, over a lot of feedings. The only time I can see this being an issue is if the feeder is wet.

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Originally Posted by obsidianembrace

He tolerated it just fine twice. I really believe if I feed in the enclosure I have a much higher chance of being struck at in the future.

I'm not really worried about him being healthy at this point, I know he can go quite awhile without food. But I just can't figure out why he isn't... I thought it might be shed because he hasn't shed at all since I got him (unless he did while he was out and about in the house).

So that's my second worry is that he hasn't shed at all.

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How old is he? I am guessing he is young if he is eating hoppers. While adults can go a long time without feeding, youngsters are not as forgiving.

He's young, about 230g.

It's not that feeding in the enclosure causes aggression, it's just with conditioning the way I see it... hand -->food will turn into hand=food.

In my experience that's what happens when I gave my rats treats.. fingers in the bars were always perfectly safe until we started giving them treats through the bars. We had to open the door and give treats that way to avoid getting fingers chomped by unsuspecting friends and family.

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Originally Posted by obsidianembrace

He's young, about 230g.

It's not that feeding in the enclosure causes aggression, it's just with conditioning the way I see it... hand -->food will turn into hand=food.

In my experience that's what happens when I gave my rats treats.. fingers in the bars were always perfectly safe until we started giving them treats through the bars. We had to open the door and give treats that way to avoid getting fingers chomped by unsuspecting friends and family.

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And I'm telling you that doesn't happen with snakes, in my experience with a decent sized group of animals. Why? First of all, snakes are no where near as trainable (aka "contitionable" if that's a word) as rats. They don't make the association. And even if they were trainable enough to make associations like that, moving them to feed wouldn't solve the problem because they would just associate being taken out of the enclosure with being fed.

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Originally Posted by obsidianembrace

He's young, about 230g.

It's not that feeding in the enclosure causes aggression, it's just with conditioning the way I see it... hand -->food will turn into hand=food.

In my experience that's what happens when I gave my rats treats.. fingers in the bars were always perfectly safe until we started giving them treats through the bars. We had to open the door and give treats that way to avoid getting fingers chomped by unsuspecting friends and family.

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Rats are buttheads even without conditioning.

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

Rats are buttheads even without conditioning.

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haha no way. that's mice :)

But I will think about it, thanks for pointing that out.

So how long can he go before I should worry?

Its hard to say, especially without seeing a pic so we can judge his condition now. Do you have a digital scale? If he starts losing weight, then it may be an issue. From the feeding schedule you describe, I would guess he would be on the leaner side. So, if he was in our collection I would probably make it a priority to get him eating. I would make sure temps were correct, clutter up his enclosure as much as possible, black out/cover the sides of the enclosure to minimize stress, leave him alone for a week, then offer him a live appropriately sized prey item in his enclosure (probably something slightly smaller than what he normally eats). I'd just put the prey item in the enclosure, cover the enclosure (or turn out the lights) and go away for 15min or so. If he doesn't eat remove the prey item and try again in a week. This method as worked for me so far.

It isn't normal for a 230g BP to fast, so obviously something is bothering him.