Heat seeking missile

[Alter-Echo]

As we all know, ball pythons use heat sensing pits to help them find warm blooded prey, usually in addition to their keen sense of smell. Well, I seem to have a snake that relies on her heat seeking ability almost entirely to find and attack prey, and doesn't seem to be able to identify prey by scent alone.

My blackbee mojave orange ghost female, Amora, will attack anything warm that enters her cage, or even near her cage. Tong feeding is tricky, as she often goes past the tongs and goes for my hand, as it is bigger and warmer than the rat on the tongs. In order to get her to successfully feed, I need to both wear a leather glove to reduce the perceived heat from my hand, and heat up her rat to much higher temps than is needed for most other ball pythons. She doesn't seem to recognize the scent of rats or mice as food and if the food is left sitting in her cage, even hot, she won't eat it, it has to both be moving and very very warm.

Anyone else ever seen a snake that was so particular? I have snakes that will not eat off of tongs, I have snakes that will even eat room temp rodents, but never one so dependent on such heat and movement like that. She is not aggressive when removed from the tank, but when she is in there, she goes for anything warm and doesn't seem to notice cooler objects under a certain temp.

[Sonny1318]

Depending on the time of year, two of my boys go after heat sources like you said “heat seeking missiles”. Show interest in my hand instead of the prey. Their lamp, as soon as I turn it off, and go to remove it. The best is when they come over the tank to strike at stuff. I even had people comment about why I have a hook for “just ball pythons”. And believe me I should use it more but don’t. Real keepers don’t take pride in taking chances or getting bit. And yes I’m guilty of letting a couple babies bite be just to get it out of their system. Sorry rambled, peace out. And before anybody mentions using a paper towel roll. Or not needing a hook. They’re all sorts of strokes for different folks.

[RickyNY]

Try warming up the rat more than your hand. That's what I do with the hair dryer. I think I shoot for a little over 100 f.
Give it a try.

[Sonny1318]

Try warming up the rat more than your hand. That's what I do with the hair dryer. I think I shoot for a little over 100 f.
Give it a try.

Sometimes you don’t realize how quickly they lose some of the heat it 2 to 5 seconds from the hair dryer to their strike zone. I warm mine hotter then that. Gotta be careful not to get the metal of what ever your using to feed too hot. Or they will aim for that, just a tip I learned the hard way.

[Alter-Echo]

Try warming up the rat more than your hand. That's what I do with the hair dryer. I think I shoot for a little over 100 f.
Give it a try.

Yeah, funny thing is that I practically have to cook the thing to get it warm enough to draw her attention away from me.. like, 2in away from a 100w mercury vapor lamp warm.

[Sonny1318]

Yeah, funny thing is that I practically have to cook the thing to get it warm enough to draw her attention away from me.. like, 2in away from a 100w mercury vapor lamp warm.

I believe that has to do with such a small body mass dissipating the heat much faster than we realize. And Yes I used to warm feeders with heat lamps myself for years, but grabbed onto the idea for using hair dryers about six years ago. I always felt I was possibly cooking them a bit with the lamps. Just my two cents. Peace