Cyprus mulch for hard to start hatchlings

Out of my five recent hatchlings (set up in 6 quart tubs, aspen, hides) three of them took f/t right away without any trouble. Two of them were striking out of fear but not eating and generally appeared stressed when I tried to feed (striking at the air, huffing and puffing, curling into defensive pose). I heard that cyprus mulch is good for getting ball python hatchlings eating (no explanation on the page, just the suggestion) so I tried it.

Well after 24 hour of sitting on cyprus mulch *wham* happy snakes feeding on f/t no problems!

Anyone else try this trick or just use cyprus to begin with? I'm thinking the darker color of the substrate helped them feel more secure.

I recently switched my adults from newspaper to cypress. I have two hatchling that will not take food, live or f/t. I'm going to switch them to cypress tomorrow and see what happens.

Let me know how that works out!

Cypress is a hardly a sustainable product, maybe consider coco chips?

Good point. I will go through this little bag I have and then see if they are still happy on coco or something else dark. I'm running off the idea that the color is what they like.

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Success, well 50%. Left live rat pups in overnight and one ate! Tonight I'm going to try f/t for the other one. Thanks for posting this:gj:

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Originally Posted by piedlover79

Good point. I will go through this little bag I have and then see if they are still happy on coco or something else dark. I'm running off the idea that the color is what they like.

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Hey pl, ZooMed makes the 100% cypress mulch as does All living things. All living things makes a twice milled 100% cypress mulch which is top of the line. Steer clear of the "blended mulches" bc they contain other undesirable ingredients.

Colin Weaver has written extensively on the benefits of using cypress mulch for poor feeding and non feeding ball pythons. His methods are proven and he has various articles on different topics as well. His case based reporting of non feeding ball pythons is very interesting and a must read. I have taken a page or two out of his book and had nothing but success. Switching substrates once the animal is feeding on cypress mulch can be problematic. "The enigmatic ball python appetite" is the title of this article. One of many.

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Originally Posted by MS2

Success, well 50%. Left live rat pups in overnight and one ate! Tonight I'm going to try f/t for the other one. Thanks for posting this:gj:

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Thats great. Congrats. I'm pretty sure your success will grow with the use of 100% cypress mulch. Just like I posted to pl about Colin Weaver's article " The enigmatic ball python appetite" is a amazing eye opening read. Good luck.

The 'twice milled' is exactly the mulch I got. :) I will have to check out that article. Right not they are on just a thin layer of the cypress over aspen so at least I'm not using too much.

MS2 congrats on the feed and good luck on the other one.

Still no luck with my last holdout. He will still not eat! I saw another post on how to set them up in a smaller tub, so I switched him to a smaller one yesterday and going to try again tonight.

Smaller tub is often the answer, make them feel super secure! Good luck!