Last meal 1/19/09 - refusing to eat

I'm not panicking - yet... but I did think it was a good idea to post and see if those with more knowledge and experience have anything to add. Nothing has changed in his environment, and as you can see from the chart that follows, my BP has been an aggressive eater - eating anywhere from 9% to 26% of his body weight twice a month for the first 8 months that I had him.

But his last meal was 1/19/09, and he's refused any further meals. For the last 4 weeks I've been mommy to 3 adorable rats, but I really don't want to be a rat mommy. I tried pre-scenting with a mouse last week, and it still didn't work. He's either scared or just not interested.

At what point do I start to really worry?

I have three that stopped feeding between 1/1 & 1/19 they are still off feed,male mojave 451g,female pastel 1017g,normal female 3660g.I still try every week no luck,Im not stressing at all(well maybe on my pastel because I want to breed her next year)this is what they do,try a ASF rat that may work.

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Originally Posted by greghall

this is what they do

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Do you mean this is just what BP's do from time to time? Or is it this time of year? Or what?

I'm looking at his growth and wondering if he's just all grown up now, and going to slow down on his food intake. Starting in December he had his biggest meal ever, and then went down to his smallest meal ever (logical) but that's when he got his first "taste" (or lack thereof?) of refusal.... and has been refusing since... at least part of what was offered to him.

Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree here, but maybe the refusals started with you offering a significantly bigger rat than it had ever seen before. But the length of time that it has not eaten so far is really nothing to be worried about although non feeding is aggravating to us all.

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Originally Posted by judiilana

Do you mean this is just what BP's do from time to time? Or is it this time of year? Or what?

I'm looking at his growth and wondering if he's just all grown up now, and going to slow down on his food intake. Starting in December he had his biggest meal ever, and then went down to his smallest meal ever (logical) but that's when he got his first "taste" (or lack thereof?) of refusal.... and has been refusing since... at least part of what was offered to him.

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ALL OF THE ABOVE! try different prey,smaller size every week,switch up tubs,hides even a car ride,Im not going to worry about mine till april thats when alot go back on feed.

My male hasn't eaten in months. Last year he went 6 months and still looked and acted perfectly healthy otherwise. Most likely, just that time of year...

We are welcoming you with open arms to the Non-Feeding-Snake club.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=85425

You will soon be getting a virtual t-shirt and ID card. :D

My pastel went on a no-food-diet a few days after yours. SHE FINALLY ATE TODAY! YEAY! I moved her out of her 55gal to a 20gal last Sunday. I don't know if the change in enclosure did it, or if it was just "time" for her to start eating. Really, I have stopped worrying about it every time she refuses. I just look at her enclosure and ask myself what can I improve on... whether it does the trick or not, I don't really much care - well, not yet. When she starts to lose significant weight, then it's off to the vet we go.

By the way, AWESOME record keeping you got there! I am VERY impressed!

Good lord he gets way too much food. I would go off feed too if I got Thanksgiving dinner every single day.. Jeez.

Stick with about 50-65g of food every 7-10 days. He's an adult and as a male, doesn't need much at all to maintain his weight and grow. He hardly needs 250g of food.. No wonder he's refusing. Not even huge breeder females get that much.

Let him rest for 2-3 weeks without trying to feed him, then try a weaned/small rat that is 50-65g or two medium adult mice. He doesn't NEED anymore than that. He's only taking 4-5 mice at a time because he's still in "Feed Mode". Of course he'll eat it if it's offered.

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Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

Good lord he gets way too much food. I would go off feed too if I got Thanksgiving dinner every single day.. Jeez.

Stick with about 50-65g of food every 7-10 days. He's an adult and as a male, doesn't need much at all to maintain his weight and grow. He hardly needs 250g of food.. No wonder he's refusing. Not even huge breeder females get that much.

Let him rest for 2-3 weeks without trying to feed him, then try a weaned/small rat that is 50-65g or two medium adult mice. He doesn't NEED anymore than that. He's only taking 4-5 mice at a time because he's still in "Feed Mode". Of course he'll eat it if it's offered.

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Hi Becky, new to snakes here. I was reading some posts that says to feed the snake 10%-15% of his body weight. I guess that just applies to juvies? That always confused me because they also say an ASF cannot outgrow a bp, while a rat will - which, to me, implies that a big rat (100+g) will be too big for an adult bp.

I don't do the 10-15% of body weight. I look at the snake and calculate in my mind how much they reasonably can take and what they cannot. If they did well with two medium adult mice last time, then that's what they get. If they did well with one hopper mouse last feed, that's what they get or they get bumped up to a small adult.

My adult females don't get anymore than about 80-100g of food every 7-10 days(longer if they don't look like they need it). The OP has an adult male who can easily gain tons of weight off of 65g of food or less every 7-10 days.

Smaller more frequent meals, in general, will get better results than huge, less frequent meals. 330g of food, which is what he got for ONE meal, is absolutely too much food. I can't think of anyone who feeds even their largest adult females that much. Not even Blood Pythons get that much food since their metabolisms are even slower than Ball Pythons.

Feeding that much in one meal is just going to lead to a huge bowel movement since most of that food will go to waste. Frequent large bowel movements means the snake is getting too much and it's just passing on through. Less frequent, small bowel movements means they are digesting everything and are using the nutrients instead of just converting to waste.

I agree with Becky. That's a fair lot of food for a ball python, especially a male one. Ball pythons rarely allow themselves to get fat. If they are feeding well or overfeeding sometimes they will simply refuse for awhile. Sort of a self-regulating thing. Remember these are ambush predators. They were not designed by nature to have a constant supply of big meals like we can offer them in captivity. Smaller, regular meals seem to work best in a captive situation.

It could also be the time of the year. This is a male (it has been properly sexed, yes?) whose a good size and sexually mature. He may have his mind on things other than where his next meal is coming from. It's not that uncommon for adult BP's, males or females, to be sporadic feeders during the breeding season.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

This is a male (it has been properly sexed, yes?)

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It has not been properly sexed. The way we (think we) know it's a male is that we saw his inner parts when we saw him pooping once, and they were in every way what appeared to be male parts.

Thank you for all the great advice and tips. We'll hold off on offering anything for a couple of weeks, and then offer just one of the 3 rats - no more.

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Originally Posted by anatess

By the way, AWESOME record keeping you got there! I am VERY impressed!

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Thank you!

On my computer I have a bar graph showing the numbers translated into a line graph, and it's cool to see his growth over time, but I couldn't figure out how to paste that into this box. I'm not exactly what you'd call OCD (you should see my DESK! Well, if you could... it's covered with so much crap that nobody can see it) but when it comes to keeping track of numbers etc, I just LOVE it.

I've only got one ball that hasn't gone back to feeding yet, and I think that is because she has bred previously (before I got her).