BP Feeding Issue

[kthoms104]

Alright, so this is my 6 month old Lesser Male BP: https://ibb.co/bTn0Kc
I don't know his current weight, but my best guess on length is about a foot and a half. I'm not completely sure, but I think he's a bit underweight (does he look at all underweight to you guys?)
Otherwise, I've got him living in standard conditions. His tub is decently-packed (I could probably fill it some more, but he's in a tub-set up so I don't have many fake plants currently in there... just two branches, a water dish, rocks, two hides, etc.) His hot side temp. is around 86 Fahrenheit, measured with a UTH thermostat, and his cold temp is around 70-75. Humidity's always at around 50-60, but I recently moved it up to the 70s to help him shed, as he hasn't done so in over 3 months (see previous thread of mine.)

I touched on this a bit in an earlier thread, but I wanted to talk more about the feeding issue.

I bought him from XYZ Reptiles (online) who feeds mostly live with a frozen mouse once a month. I've got a bit of an aversion to feeding live, so I immediately began feeding him frozen fuzzies. At the time, he was about 3 months. I quickly figured that he needed small adult mice, and was able to get him to take 3 or 4 meals over the course of 3 or 4 weeks (I try to feed him weekly.)
All of a sudden, he completely refused his food. This feeding strike lasted a little over a month, and I fixed it a while later by putting his tank on "quarantine" (AKA, covering the plastic in towels, keeping lights dim, only opening the tub to change his water once every few days...) and he took the next meal easily. I thought that the feeding strike had ended, but apparently not, because for the past few weeks, he has once again refused his food. I know that it's no big deal for him to not take food every few weeks, but I he looks somewhat underweight to me and I want to try to get him back on weekly feeding of small adult frozens. Any advice?

P.S: Do BPs get to an age where they stop growing, or do they stop when they've simply maxed out? I know this is a silly question, but I worry that if he keeps going on feeding strikes, gaining and losing weight consistently, he'll miss his window-age to grow or something ????

[CALM Pythons]

You need to read the BP sticky's . These are temperamental snakes and your Husbandry is off. The first thing I see is you mention a Thermostat to measure a HotSide temp of 86.. You cant measure temps with a Thermostat. You need a thermometer to see what the inside floor of his hot hide is and 86 is to cool. 88-90 is what you need. If he isn't digesting food fast enough because of a low temp he wont eat again right away. A Thermostat might be set to 98-100 degrees to reach 90 inside the enclosure depending on the set up ect..
A small snake like this under good Husbandry should be eating every 7-10 without any problem at all.
Go to the sticky on how to set up a Glass Tank and see how Tstats and Thermometers are used/run for a UTH.
As far as size, there are 100's of threads on all these questions over the years. Check out the search function on the Forum. Ball Pythons grow all their lives.


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[Sunnieskys]

Hot side 88-90 measured with a temp gun at the plastic without substrate over the uth. My thermostat says 93 and the uth reads 90 with a temp gun. Ambient temps need to be 80. Get your temps on point and I bet he will start eating again. BP's are finicky and will stop eating if temps are off.