The Psychology of Problem Feeders – Get your Ball Python eating again

Oh I see. Thanks @Zincubus. we'll see how it goes!


Cheers,
Sam

This worked like a charm. A clean house, a new appetite. I had let his stool and shed stay in the enclosure past its welcome, where I usually keep a spotless habitat. Also, I had always put the bag with the rat on top of the cage for a couple hours before feeding. I did not do that the last couple times.

A good cleaning, a bag on top of the cage for a while...wham! Just like normal.

Thanks for the post.

Good article! Thanks for sharing. I've seen this theory floating around the internet a few times, but this puts a personal experience behind it and some evidence.

I really enjoyed reading this. Learned a lot as well. I will for sure implement some of these tricks the next time Jimmy goes on strike.


1.0 Normal Jimmy
0.1 Normal Lola

One sort of random question... I've heard of scenting a rat with mouse smell to get a snake to switch to rats... but does anyone do that preemptively? Like, this week offer a mouse as usual but smear some rat smell on it, and then next week try a rat with some mouse smell, and then after that just a rat?

The BP I had years ago was pretty much never a problematic eater; occasionally he'd refuse a meal, but never more than one or two and then he'd go right back to it without any trouble. His only real bit of finicky-ness was that live or dead, he wouldn't take any prey that wasn't dangling by its tail. I guess I started doing that when he was a baby and he just learned that that's what food does. He was also pretty confident and bold for a BP... not much really fazed him, but live mice running around his cage (only happened if I dropped them accidentally) totally freaked him out.

So now I have a new baby at home who hasn't eaten for me yet. We're coming up on a week on Wednesday, so I'll try feeding him then. He seems to be settling in a bit more, so I hope he'll take it. I have no reason to think he won't, but after the trauma of losing my 18-y/o albino corn recently, we have turned into a couple of mother hens about our new boy. I've been told he's eaten f/t at least once, but I would love any tips about maximizing our chances on the first try, beyond leaving him alone beforehand, offering in the evening with the lights down low, and braining the (thawed) mouse first.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

One sort of random question... I've heard of scenting a rat with mouse smell to get a snake to switch to rats... but does anyone do that preemptively? Like, this week offer a mouse as usual but smear some rat smell on it, and then next week try a rat with some mouse smell, and then after that just a rat?

The BP I had years ago was pretty much never a problematic eater; occasionally he'd refuse a meal, but never more than one or two and then he'd go right back to it without any trouble. His only real bit of finicky-ness was that live or dead, he wouldn't take any prey that wasn't dangling by its tail. I guess I started doing that when he was a baby and he just learned that that's what food does. He was also pretty confident and bold for a BP... not much really fazed him, but live mice running around his cage (only happened if I dropped them accidentally) totally freaked him out.

So now I have a new baby at home who hasn't eaten for me yet. We're coming up on a week on Wednesday, so I'll try feeding him then. He seems to be settling in a bit more, so I hope he'll take it. I have no reason to think he won't, but after the trauma of losing my 18-y/o albino corn recently, we have turned into a couple of mother hens about our new boy. I've been told he's eaten f/t at least once, but I would love any tips about maximizing our chances on the first try, beyond leaving him alone beforehand, offering in the evening with the lights down low, and braining the (thawed) mouse first.

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I do that, inadvertently. When I feed my hatchlings F/T I put rat pups in the same bag as the mice to warm them up. So far I haven't had any problems, but now the two remaining hatchlings I have are both on mice to finish off the bag I have left in the freezer.

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Being a new BP owner for a week now I have been searching for the answer to this question. How often to keep trying to feed if he's not eating?

Thank you

My son has a baby bp that hasn't ate in 7 weeks. We've done everything but not this.. today I'm moving dork! The pic below is what i found this mornig, so maybe he is wanting a different place to stay.
https://goo.gl/photos/fKbXQzu5ozgZbPPW7

Thank you great reading

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Thank you great reading

Thank you so much for posting the article. As a noob, I found very educational, and I found the bit about reinforcing the habit of refusing to feed to make complete sense. :)