Ball python won’t eat, help!

He’s a one year old male ball python. He’s never had trouble with eating until now

I offer the rat, he looks at it, looks like he might strike, but then turns away and finds somewhere else to go. This is the third week that he hasn’t eaten.
it has been getting colder here, maybe it has something to do with that? He doesn’t seem to be sick, the rats are heated with warm water as I usually do, I’ve tried three different rats now. I just don’t know what’s causing it? I know at some point he will eat but I don’t want to keep wasting rats : (

How much does he weigh? He could be hitting his 1000g wall or just be going off feed because of the winter months and we wants a female. He should go back to eating when the weather heats up


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Originally Posted by Snow Balls

How much does he weigh? He could be hitting his 1000g wall or just be going off feed because of the winter months and we wants a female. He should go back to eating when the weather heats up


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Agreed with Snow, my male is sitting at 873g now, and turned one in July. I noticed after never missing a meal that right at the one year mark and as he started getting closer to 1000g his feeding started getting less consistent. I swapped him to a 2 week feeding schedule and that helped a lot until it started cooling off, and now he's usually doing every 2-3 weeks. At your's age and weight as long as all your husbandry is good I don't think you have a ton to worry about.

Just to add to the great advice already given above, just note his weight down maybe once a month.

If you witness 'drastic' weight loss, consider a vet. But expect a little weight loss if he stays on hunger strike.

The longest I've had a male go on hunger strike is 6 months, have heard stories of some going up to a year.

I offer fortnightly and will wait until two meals have been rejected before switching to monthly. Once the hunger strike is over and the first meal has been eaten again, I go back to fortnightly. But this is for my oldest male. The younger ones are less than 1kg and still eat weekly unless in shed!

Good luck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bleh

Just to add to the great advice already given above, just note his weight down maybe once a month.

If you witness 'drastic' weight loss, consider a vet. But expect a little weight loss if he stays on hunger strike.

The longest I've had a male go on hunger strike is 6 months, have heard stories of some going up to a year.

I offer fortnightly and will wait until two meals have been rejected before switching to monthly. Once the hunger strike is over and the first meal has been eaten again, I go back to fortnightly. But this is for my oldest male. The younger ones are less than 1kg and still eat weekly unless in shed!

Good luck.

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thank you! I’ll definitely try what you mentioned with feeding!