Ball Python Poops; Help Please

First off, hi my name is Mr.Grim and I am new to the forums. I own a 4/5 year old "regular/normal" heterozygous ball python, named Zero, who is 40" long. I feed Zero every two weeks with a medium frozen rat. Now typically when I feed Zero, within the first week he poops. Then another week passes and I feed him again and he poops within a week, again. About 5 weeks ago I fed him and he had not pooped within his first week. Second week came and still no poop. I thought I had just forgotten I cleaned it out or maybe my mom cleaned it out, so I fed him again. Another week (The third week) goes by and still no poop. Now the fourth week comes up and it's time for me to feed him again, and I'll be honest I was a couple days late, but I went into his tank and his eyes were cloudy/blue, so he was going to shed. I let him be and he shed. It is now a day after the fifth week, and a day after his shed, so I am anticipating a poop (since he shed.) I want to know how long after a shed should he poop so if he doesn't within that time I can take him to a veterinarian. I also don't know if I should feed him again, because it's been 3 weeks since he has eaten, if he hasn't pooped yet. Tomorrow I am going to try giving him a bath to see if that helps.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Yep, step one: soak him in warm water for a while. If that doesn't work, hit me up for step 2.

About how long after the warm bath should I wait until I assume it did not work?

Give him a nice soak in luke warm water between 15-30 minutes. Gently apply pressure down his belly and massage a little in front of his cloaca. This should loosen anything up and encourage a movement.

Balls are also very shy guys. Perhaps he isn't feeling safe enough to go. Has anything changed in his enclosure recently? Something could be stressing him out.

Balls are known for being unpredictable. My pastel didn't go for me for almost a month once, so I know it's a little worrying. If that doesn't help, a vet visit may be in order.

My understanding is that sometimes BPs will hold their poop for a long time, for no apparent reason... some of my snakes pass small poops regularly, while some prefer to save it up and surprise me by releasing the kraken all at once - fun times. If your BP has "sausage butt" and still isn't passing anything, it might be time to get curious and think about helping. Is Zero giving any signs of discomfort?

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Originally Posted by Aercadia

My understanding is that sometimes BPs will hold their poop for a long time, for no apparent reason... some of my snakes pass small poops regularly, while some prefer to save it up and surprise me by releasing the kraken all at once - fun times. If your BP has "sausage butt" and still isn't passing anything, it might be time to get curious and think about helping. Is Zero giving any signs of discomfort?

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Agreed. I don't think it is anything to worry about unless he is showing signs of discomfort. I have had a snake go from shed cycle to shed cycle before and I have had a snake poop weekly. Every snake has a different schedule when it comes to poop.

No signs of discomfort, very curious and active like always. Only reason I bring this up is because he was going every week after feeding, but suddenly it stopped and that's what has me inquiring. There isn't any swelling and there isn't any substrate that he could have accidentally swallowed or anything like that.

To me, it doesn't sound like he's constipated yet... If he is, you'll see signs. One of my adult females was constipated last year. She got very swollen near the vent and I could see her periodically lifting her tail, straining to poop with no results. I gave her several warm soaks and let her exercise a few times by crawling around in the backyard. Finally, when I decided to take her to the vet the next day, she let out a huge poop that night. Must have read my mind. [emoji6]

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Feel his body, if you dont feel any hard masses then there is nothing to worry about. they poop when they have to not on a schedual, just because they do something consistently it does not mean they will stick to that routine.... dont soak the poor guy because all your gonna do is add unnessary stress, his water bowl should be big enough for him to soak in anyway if HE decides thats what he needs.... they live to make us worry

I let him soak in warm water a little over 24 hours ago, but the purpose served well because he hadn't had a bath in a long time. But I got home tonight and he let out a poop, so I'm glad he did. My only concern now is that it doesn't look like it's big enough that it came from two medium rats. With that being said, I've never observed the quantity of poop before so it's probably just normal.
What do you guys think?

http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1ddv5ccy.jpg

Edit: And before the police post, no he doesn't lay in the open, I moved his cave to take a picture. You can see the indents of where the cave was and his body shape.

People seem to forget that 4 or 5 weeks is NOTHING, I have animals that take 8 weeks and the tree is no need for action.

Feeding is also not linked to defecation because the animal does not defecate does not mean it should not be fed.

As for warm bath it is in most cases complitely unecessary, unless the animal has a persistant bulge near the cloaca there is no need to intervene.

Bottom line they go when they are ready.