Newish baby

Hi, we have a young ball python that was donated to a bio class. I think I may need so.e help feeding. I haven't got to give him his second meal and his first took a couple of attempts before he actually accepted anything. He/she is in a terrarium on coconut shred with a dimming UTH on one side under a 40 watt lamp, under the lamp it is about 85 and his hot hide around 90 his cool side is high 70s low 80s. Humidity is hard but between 60% and 40% misting often With a big water dish. He ate 2 weeks after we got him. And just finished its first shed ( a good one ). We are offering frozen thawed small mouse, which he ate 2 a little over 2 weeks ago today, yesterday and today we attempred to recreate the situation to no avail.
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Actually he took about two weeks to eat and we waited a week to try. He refused to even pay attention to the dancing mice pinkies on the forceps. (Duh too small for him! But strikes at me all the time) we would try early morning before the light goes on and give him/her a little show and then leave the mouse alone with him for a while, nothing. But when I gave him a small mouse of course he rejected the wiggling..... but, 20 min later he came out and wrapped him up. Now he acts funny, real funny when we try, he gets all active normally he is invisible in the hide or another camo spot. But when trying to offer him food he is out all over the tank and trying to slither up up and opening his mouth and tounge flickin and basically acting all comando- performer all that day, out and hunting about, but ignores our frozen/thaws. Oh yeah we decided to feed him in the tank cause we do not want to stress him out-which im sure I am with all the dancing mouse stuff anyway. I thought maybe out of tank feeding woyld make the warm mouse more visible to him once though but have not tried.

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Still no action, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, maybe i need to up the size again? Is this normal, say first meal one size, second meal a little bigger and third meal bigger still? the "small mice" are just about exactly his girth, dont really want to buy the wrong food size.

Have you tried leaving the pinkies/feeders with him in the cage (and giving him privacy)? It's also important to insure that f/t's are warmed just right....not too hot, and not to cold. Not sure it will help, but I thaw my feeders in soiled mouse bedding, and then take a blow-dryer and scent the room with the feeder for about a minute prior to offering it. Here is a link that may also be helpful ....

http://jkrballstreetjournal.com/2014...-eating-again/

Also he looks quit big... id give him either rat weanling to a smaller small rat.... Aswell take ur cage and put Black paper or w.e color around 3 sides, only exposing front(more secure) bcz if its in a bio class it will be stressfull for a bit so he will decline meals, I think your best bet is to warm the rat/mouse before you leave and drop it in (warmside) if he doesnt strike.. by morning its gone

Thanks guys for chiming in. I hope he does look good and big, but i dont want him to start getting skinny, Maybe move up to small rat pup, it seemed like that is why he/she rejected our offerings, wrong size, i will try and weigh him. His cage is blacked out, and he is in the lab, not the classroom so he really gets minimum kids in there, and when they are, he is usually invisible. I am going to try this weekend with a blow dryer Is the mouse being too cool making it invisible? I warm them in warm water in their bags for 10 min. He looks like he is hunting for the meal when its in with him, we give him privacy as in leave the lab for about an hour, but I worry about leaving him in there with a thawed mouse for too long, you know bacteria and everything, but overnight is ok? hmmm. What about his poop, he has only left urates since we got him, should we wait for him to defaecate before we feed/? I read that was not necessary.

their eyes are not that important for hunting, its mostly their sense of smell and the heat pits. and i guess he smells there is something going on.

so maybe the food item isnt warm enough. that could also explain why he is more interested in your hand than in the food item.

overheating the food item is also bad, i think the best suggestion is the hair dryer. blast it with a hair dryer to drive up surface temperature directly before feeding.

BPs dont poop as often as they eat, so just keep feeding. it may take 4 meals until they poop once.

Here is a size frame reference pic, little guy/gal being held by a normal 7 year old http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...che=1400773669

I would say a rat pup or adult mouse is fine for that size. Are you able to offer in the evening after dark? Also make sure to leave 5 days or so between attempts or you could stress him to further reject. You also want to make sure there is lots of privacy and security in the tank. Good luck and if he starts to lose weight please consider offering live prey as ball pythons can be tricky to get eating F/T consistently.

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Originally Posted by OJ_and_JR

Here is a size frame reference pic, little guy/gal being held by a normal 7 year old http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...che=1400773669

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Well much smaller in that picture, but yea Rat pup to Rat weanling i think would be good.

Well he took another small mouse today he has three left, maybe try to get rid of them on a slightly quicker interval, and buy some little rats.

Massed the little critter today with a laboratory beam balance, (he was in a paper bag) 71g. So his feeders should be around 7g. What was neat was he did not mind being in the bag at all, and he climbed out on his own when I opened it in his enclosure. I think he is adjusting fine. Now to work on taming his little nips/strikes.

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http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...527_102745.jpg

Well he ate his last "small" mouse today, it was the largest in the package, and weighed 11g, so he ( I am going to guess he is a he cause he is soo small ) he is doing just fine, This morning I decided to offer food cause he was all up on the log when we came in, and in a surprisingly weird way hanging coiled like a GTP. We warmed up the mouse and just left it in there, no zombie dance, and watched from outside the lab. In about 20 min he had taken it down. Without leaving the log!! He did not strike with any speed, just hung down and slowly reached for it, then was a little more quick with the coiling, but not like lightning fast. So boring, I miss feeding my 28 inch beardie live hamsters, he would rip them apart and dig into them like a dog eating spaghetti. :( FT is a little boring, but I guess its safe for the snake, who I have named "Snake the Dog", referencing Adventure Time. When he is still small I would like to see him take a live hopper, at least ONCE, but I guess I will be alright without that. I think with his slow strike, its probably gonna be FT for good. Oh yeah after he ate he came down off the log and low and behold, he is pink belly again.
Thanks in advance again, but does anyone want to suggest when I can move him into a bigger tub, display plastic?
http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...ke_the_dog.jpg

Ok so maybe the beardie was closer to 23" but he was really big. Anyway back to the snake is a 36" cage too big?

why would an enclosure ever be too large?

if you feel that the BP might feel insecure, just clutter it up a bit with more decoration and more hides, break open lines of sight, create hiding places.

Hmmmmmm.

Well, thats good to know. But say you have a 80g baby, would you put it in a T8? Thats why I would choose a 36". But I am a noob.

especially the smaller ones are scared of open lines of sight, because in nature it means that there is an open vector where a bird of prey like an owl or falcon could attack them, or a 4 legged predator could spot them, and they have no way to get to safety fast enough.

so what makes them feel insecure is not the size of the enclosure. if there are enough hiding places, and ways to crawl from one hiding place to another while still staying mostly out of sight, then i think they like large enclosures and will spend many nights exploring it all.

i see no reason why you shouldnt buy the large adult-sized enclosure right away. sure, you need to add hides and fake plants and decoration and stuff, and that makes cleaning more challenging, but we are talking about a pet, and not a breeding operation where everything is geared towards efectivity.

I would keep some mice around when you decide to buy the rats. Sometimes, Ball Pythons will not be interested in a rat because it has a different scent than a mouse. So, if your BP refuses a rat, you have some mice for backup. :)

He/she is still pounding mouses at about 8 -10 grams. And the shed was good again gonna upload some pics in the new enclosure.

http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...625_131400.jpg

http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...0_11.37.39.jpg

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Some new ones
Still eating well ex large mice every 10 days

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Is this hide too small?

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...9bfb27a971.jpg