So... 5 year old adult male with no prior problems has stopped eating for 7 months

Hello guys! I'm wondering if anyone knows what I might try next...

The issue is in the title: Yukon, my 5 year old adult male who has never had feeding issues in his life, and who I've had since he was only a hatchling, has not eaten for around 7 months. I normally think that it isn't an issue when they don't lose significant weight, but he has now lost fairly significant weight, and would be considered "skinny" for a ball python.

He just shows basically zero interest in food, and rarely comes out of his hide either. I've been offering around once a month, as I usually do for any ball pythons who fast. He doesn't have any external symptoms, like no bloating or anything like that. He looks normal but just skinny now...

Does anyone have experience with this and have suggestions?

What is your husbandry like?

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Originally Posted by vivi

What is your husbandry like?

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you'll just have to trust me that my husbandry is good lol

I guess I will.

What have you tried thus far?

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

you'll just have to trust me that my husbandry is good lol

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redshepherd is an experienced keeper. She's already gone through all the basics and is asking for help from an experienced keeper with experience with long term food strikes.

I don't have experience here either, so I'll leave it to those who do.

I just wanted to vouche for red. She's no rookie :gj:

I figured, she seems like an experienced snake owner. I could suggest some methods that have proved to work with other snake owners. However, I have no experience so I will leave it alone instead. Its kind of an instinct to ask what the husbandry is like for feeding questions, since that seems to be the biggest mistake most people make, but I trust that you´ve got it down.

I do hope someone can help you. Good luck with your snake and tell him i said hi!

Put your snake in a snake bag and take it for a car ride for 30 min to an hour. I know it sounds crazy but it works from getting them to eat to starting to breed.

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Originally Posted by Stewart_Reptiles

Put your snake in a snake bag and take it for a car ride for 30 min to an hour. I know it sounds crazy but it works from getting them to eat to starting to breed.

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The above an a good soak.

I see your in CA, so Winter Blues shouldn't be a problem. My older BP's will go off prey in the winter. Doesn't matter that temps are perfect the snakes just know.
Are African Soft Furs legal in CA? ASF will get a BP to feed. If ASF aren't a option try a crawler rat. Something small that won't hurt him. If it bugs him enough he "might" eat it.

Good luck!

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Originally Posted by Stewart_Reptiles

Put your snake in a snake bag and take it for a car ride for 30 min to an hour. I know it sounds crazy but it works from getting them to eat to starting to breed.

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Do they prefer sports or muscle cars to get in the mood? :cool:

Knowing BPs they probably like big cushy vans with shag carpeting...:rofl:Low ri-der....

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Do they prefer sports or muscle cars to get in the mood? :cool:

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Mine prefer 4x4 trucks. :D

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

Hello guys! I'm wondering if anyone knows what I might try next...

The issue is in the title: Yukon, my 5 year old adult male who has never had feeding issues in his life, and who I've had since he was only a hatchling, has not eaten for around 7 months. I normally think that it isn't an issue when they don't lose significant weight, but he has now lost fairly significant weight, and would be considered "skinny" for a ball python.

He just shows basically zero interest in food, and rarely comes out of his hide either. I've been offering around once a month, as I usually do for any ball pythons who fast. He doesn't have any external symptoms, like no bloating or anything like that. He looks normal but just skinny now...

Does anyone have experience with this and have suggestions?

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I have 2 3 year old BPs and they both took a 4 (not 7 months but have heard of some taking a year off food) month break from eating and just started eating again. I offer once every 2 weeks. My female is pounding rats now and my male is going "I guess I will eat..." Both loss less than 30 grams in 4 months of not eating. My husbandry never changed. They both just loss interest in food and wanted to breed. My female is not ready yet but my boy is. They don't know that though and their enclosures are right next to each other. I am sure they can smell each other. I started to worry some but I kept reminding myself that they are BPs and will do this sometimes. I have a breeder friend that breeds her own rats also. She said that she hates winter. Her 40 or so BPs go off food for a few months and the rats keep coming. To bad she lives 3 hours away or would help her dispose of some with my retics and boas who rarely miss meals. Not sure what your experience is but if he is healthy and not loosing weight he just doesn't know that winter is over yet. You might have more experience than me. I just know what my guys do and have done the past 2 winters and what my breeder friend goes through. I told her she needed a boa to keep the retic or carpet to keep the population down. She laughed and told me if I ever breed them she would love to have one. Hmmmmmm……. I do have 3 pet stores that would buy them right away...… but should I? :rolleye2:

I'll add that years back when I too kept BPs, mine did this fasting also...not when they were young, but as adults, & around the same # of years. I'm been much happier
keeping colubrids & such- I re-homed my BPs to fellow herp soc members who were into them. That was long before there was a forum like this to help me de-code them,
but it wouldn't have mattered, they just aren't my favorite snakes.

Hi,

Since I know you know what your doing I assume you have already triple checked temps to rule out equipment failure. :rolleyes:

Which alternative prey items have you tried? Mine go nuts for chicks but refuse ASF's and sometimes a mouse will tempt fussy beggars.

Where is the snake spending most of the time in the enclosure ( little worried about the weight loss ) as mine stay on the cool end if they aren't eating which obviously slows their metabolism and minimises weight loss.

Does anything else seem off behaviour or activity level wise?


del

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Originally Posted by Stewart_Reptiles

Put your snake in a snake bag and take it for a car ride for 30 min to an hour. I know it sounds crazy but it works from getting them to eat to starting to breed.

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Is this for real? :0 I actually legitimately can't tell whether you might be joking or not LOL, but I will try it if it works!!

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Originally Posted by dr del

Hi,

Since I know you know what your doing I assume you have already triple checked temps to rule out equipment failure. :rolleyes:

Which alternative prey items have you tried? Mine go nuts for chicks but refuse ASF's and sometimes a mouse will tempt fussy beggars.

Where is the snake spending most of the time in the enclosure ( little worried about the weight loss ) as mine stay on the cool end if they aren't eating which obviously slows their metabolism and minimises weight loss.

Does anything else seem off behaviour or activity level wise?


del

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Yes, the equipment is still working unfortunately! LOL :S

I've just tried between f/t rats, mice, and chicks so far. I was pondering whether to try to feed live, but I still haven't with the paranoia that he will then get stuck on live. But actually it might be worth trying at this point...

He spends basically all of his time on the warm end which I guess is not helping with his maintaining weight! He's considerably skinny now for an adult...

Behavior/activity wise, he's definitely been much much less active and seems quite lethargic/droopy when I try to handle him. He still moves a bit but seems limp compared to in the past. I also used to see him out and about like looking for food at night for a few minutes a week or so, but I basically never see him out of his hide at all now/doesn't move much from his spot. I've been handling him at a bare minimum ever since he started refusing.

edit: He also still drinks water, so that's at least good and probably isn't due to dehydration

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Originally Posted by Stewart_Reptiles

Put your snake in a snake bag and take it for a car ride for 30 min to an hour. I know it sounds crazy but it works from getting them to eat to starting to breed.

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I´m not doubting you, but I´m curious how this helps?

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

Is this for real? :0 I actually legitimately can't tell whether you might be joking or not LOL, but I will try it if it works!! ...

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I'm sure Deborah is serious, even though it does sound ridiculous. I've also heard that doing a complete deep cage cleaning may help too. I wish I'd had more of these kind of suggestions to try back when I had BPs, it might have helped. BPs can really frustrate a keeper, & when I kept them, I had a very full house & decided they would be better off with those who specialized in them, since they were so "needy". You'd be forgiven for back-sliding to live prey...no one enjoys seeing a pet snake they care about just starving themselves & if this forum had been around back then, I might not have given up...but I really did have a house-FULL* of snakes besides just some BPs, so my time & patience had their limits. (*I currently have 19 snakes & most ppl would consider that a "house-full" but my current house is smaller & trust me, I had way more snakes then, lol.)

As for why a car ride or cage cleaning or other environmental changes might help...maybe it just shakes them out of their complacency & triggers a survival mode? Who knows?

Well you just explained both my adults Balls... every year they go off from around Aug/Sep till last week... like Clock Work... they are around 2000 gram Balls and they drop to about 1800 each year.. healthy as horses.. this past year I decided to stop wasting Rats trying and waited until 3 weeks ago when I seen their heads out at night looking around.. I let them go until it was Burm feeding day and smelled the Thawing Rats...so their back on. I only feed them once a month anyways. They stopped every week and every other week after they were about 1.5 years. I watch their behavior and if they are real active sometimes they will want a extra meal here or there.


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Originally Posted by redshepherd

Is this for real? :0 I actually legitimately can't tell whether you might be joking or not LOL, but I will try it if it works!!

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It is, it's an old school keeper's trick, some breeders even take it further sometime by shipping the animal to a trusted friend. Something about movement and change of environment somehow triggers them into feeding and or breeding behaviour.

I have done it a few times with animals that stop feeding and for which every adjustment failed and within 3 to 5 days they resume feeding.

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Originally Posted by Stewart_Reptiles

It is, it's an old school keeper's, some breeders even take it further sometime by shipping the animal to a trusted friend. Something about movement and change of environment somehow triggers them into feeding and or breeding behaviour.

I have done it a few times with animals that stop feeding and for which every adjustment failed and within 3 to 5 days they resume feeding.

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That's extremely interesting. So often moving an adult can kick a food strike into gear.

Just goes to show there's not a "one size fits all" approach to these goofballs.

Thanks for the insight, Deb. I certainly NEVER would have thought of that.

Good luck, Red, please keep us posted.

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Originally Posted by Craiga 01453

That's extremely interesting. So often moving an adult can kick a food strike into gear.

Just goes to show there's not a "one size fits all" approach to these goofballs.

Thanks for the insight, Deb. I certainly NEVER would have thought of that.

Good luck, Red, please keep us posted.

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BP are definitely something else those that do fine will shut down with changes and those that do poorly will be triggered and do better with changes, definitely a species that keeps you guessing.

And trust me the first time I heard of a car trip I was very skeptical as well until I tried it and it worked.

My suggestion would be to take it on a car ride to a good exotic vet. Specifically because of it losing weight. Maybe the ride might help and the vet might have some insight if it is sick or has a problem of some kind whether it be physical internal problem or due to some kind of bug or infection.

But first I would give the snake a ride to the pet store or somehow get live mice or live chick. I don't think feeding live means necessarily they will be stuck on live. To me the number one important thing (especially with weight loss and it being skinny) is to get it eating again. You can worry about getting back to f/t later.

I was just thinking: BPs need higher temps & humidity compared to many other species, plus they're notoriously shy & laid-back...so maybe because everyone is SO
careful about keeping them so "enclosed"...just maybe this is a reminder that NONE of the snakes we keep ever spend their ENTIRE lives in a "box", no matter how
perfect the "weather" is inside it, & they all need to get OUTSIDE now & then.

I'm not specifically referring to BPs, but over the years, I've also noticed that my snake's appetites tend to improve after some warm sunshine. I like to stroll around
my property holding them (not a fan of putting them on the ground, where I live there are too many risks like ticks etc), & I've successfully improved many appetites
this way, so maybe this is just another way of "taking them for a drive". Food for thought...:snake:

I tend to think it's the natural sunlight & UV, but the fresh air sure gets their attention too. So maybe it's not about the 'make' of their rides after all? ;)

I went back through my records, and Shayna, my only BP, averages 4-5 months without eating in the winter, and a little over 5 was her longest fast. She has gone 8 months with only a few meals, not zero meals.

When you say "significant weight loss," what do you mean? Shayna will routinely lose 5-8% of her body weight in a fast and then gain it back again when she starts eating again. I set my worry meter at about 10% weight loss.

Having said that, even then, I don't freak out and look at other cues.

Shayna is very inactive in fast and stays mostly on the cool side of the tank. She does not (generally) cruise and certainly doesn't seem like she's looking for food if she does. Occasionally she will urinate (I make sure all my snakes have fresh water always) and towards the beginning of the fast I might get a poop or two.

I take the last known dry weight to measure the weight loss.

I wouldn't try live, yet.

So, in summary, question wise:

1. How much weight has he lost (total and from what weight did he start at)?

2. How's his activity?

3. Is there at least urine and urates occasionally?

As stated before, I trust you on temps, but one thought, aside from a car ride, is to adjust temps a tiny bit or humidity the same. Make him think like things are changing.

Of course, only if your temps aren't near the top of safe range on the hot side (for everyone else's benefit as well).

Disclaimer: I worked my way through undergrad and grad school as a vet tech, including exotics practices, but that was a long time ago. Still, these things in combination worry me: staying on the warm side; noticeable weight loss; the fact that the snake just seems 'off' and listless to you.

Given all of those things in addition to the feeding strike, I'd get him to your exotics vet and see if there's an underlying illness affecting him. I'm not trying to be overly negative and I really hope it's just a classic BP-style hunger strike, but a few things you mentioned sparked some extra concern in my mind.

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Originally Posted by Caitlin

Disclaimer: I worked my way through undergrad and grad school as a vet tech, including exotics practices, but that was a long time ago. Still, these things in combination worry me: staying on the warm side; noticeable weight loss; the fact that the snake just seems 'off' and listless to you.

Given all of those things in addition to the feeding strike, I'd get him to your exotics vet and see if there's an underlying illness affecting him. I'm not trying to be overly negative and I really hope it's just a classic BP-style hunger strike, but a few things you mentioned sparked some extra concern in my mind.

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Your take is much appreciated here. :gj:

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Originally Posted by Caitlin

Disclaimer: I worked my way through undergrad and grad school as a vet tech, including exotics practices, but that was a long time ago. Still, these things in combination worry me: staying on the warm side; noticeable weight loss; the fact that the snake just seems 'off' and listless to you.

Given all of those things in addition to the feeding strike, I'd get him to your exotics vet and see if there's an underlying illness affecting him. I'm not trying to be overly negative and I really hope it's just a classic BP-style hunger strike, but a few things you mentioned sparked some extra concern in my mind.

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I must have missed the warm side and listless.

Please take what I said earlier with a grain of salt and I tend to agree with this.

P.S. My apologies. Fighting a fever and probably not as focused to detail as I normally am.

Guys, Deborah's suggestion literally worked for real!! LOL thank you!

I actually didn't take him on a drive (because I don't have anywhere to drive lol), but I just figured it might be something about the lengthy change in environment... and added stress as mentioned previously, that snaps them out of it? So I took him out to handle and slither around in the room here and there for really a flat two hours. And then I switched his enclosure with another snake's enclosure as well, and completely changed the interior/decor so that everything is new.

I offered today which is about 5 days later, I think (I already lost track of time nowadays) and he took the f/t rat right away! Amazing. Hahah breaking a 7-8 month fast just like that.

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

Guys, Deborah's suggestion literally worked for real!! LOL thank you!

I actually didn't take him on a drive (because I don't have anywhere to drive lol), but I just figured it might be something about the lengthy change in environment... and added stress as mentioned previously, that snaps them out of it? So I took him out to handle and slither around in the room here and there for really a flat two hours. And then I switched his enclosure with another snake's enclosure as well, and completely changed the interior/decor so that everything is new.

I offered today which is about 5 days later, I think (I already lost track of time nowadays) and he took the f/t rat right away! Amazing. Hahah breaking a 7-8 month fast just like that.

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That's awesome! :gj: :dance:

Should note for any new keepers reading this in the future that this is 100% not the reason why your new ball python isn't eating LOL

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

Should note for any new keepers reading this in the future that this is 100% not the reason why your new ball python isn't eating LOL

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Hahaha.. the next Newbie post we see will say “ ive already tried a car ride and stressing my Ball Python out but he still wont eat” hahahaha


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Yay he's eating again! Hopefully it stays that way.

I'm so glad it ate for you Fiona. :gj:

If it weren't for this free forum, some of you could probably make a living as online BP-psychologists...BPs are the neediest snakes I can think of. :rofl:

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Originally Posted by CALM Pythons

Hahaha.. the next Newbie post we see will say “ ive already tried a car ride and stressing my Ball Python out but he still wont eat” hahahaha


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Oh no hahah