4 Year old BP stopped feeding

[nukemike77]

Hi everyone, I want to apologize if this has been answered in another post somewhere, but after searching for minutes on end, I can't find anything. I have a 4 year old enchi ball python named Monty. I've raised her since she was a hatchling and she is usually a very consistent feeder, usually takes an appropriate sized F/T rat weekly. She's gone through bouts of pickiness before, but usually no more than a month of not eating before she starts again. Her previous record of not eating was 2.5 months. However, as of posting this, she has not eaten since the second week of November 2019. It's been just over 5 months since her last feeding. I weighed her in December when it became clear she wasn't going to start eating at the month mark and she weighed 1775 grams. I've weighed her consistently since then and she's down to 1502 as of last week. Her temperatures and environment have not changed except that I moved her and my other ball python, Kumo, into a different room back in January. With her weight where it is I'm not too worried yet, but I'm starting to get there. It'd be one thing if she showed even a little interest in the rat when I offer it to her, but she just stays in her hide and even hides her snout when I dangle the rat in her cage.

[nukemike77]

Sorry, I forgot to write in my question on that post. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for getting her to start feeding again? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[EL-Ziggy]

Oh the joy of BPs. 5 months is a decent fast but I wouldn't be too worried yet. A couple of my carpets are just starting to take food again. They hadn't eaten since November or December either. Hopefully yours will get back in the groove soon too. At the 6 month mark you could try a different prey type or a small live feeder. He's 4 years old and if he was eating weekly before he'll definitely eat again eventually. You may even want to extend him to a 10-14 feeding schedule

[Bogertophis]

It's less common for a female BP to do this, but honestly when I raised 2.2 BPs many years ago, right around age 4 was when they started doing this nonsense...fasting
for months here & there. Seems to have to do with their breeding instincts & all, but you always want to make sure there's no signs of an RI, & stools test healthy. That's
what is so frustrating, you can't always safely assume they're fine, especially when they're losing weight. Also be sure that there are no malfunctions for temperatures &
humidity that might be contributing to their refusals. (ie. double check all your husbandry)

Honestly, this is probably just the "typical adult BP fasting syndrome" & it's the reason I prefer to keep other snakes instead of BPs. Other snakes don't do this...
This is probably the most common topic here...some version of "why won't my BP eat?" Were both BPs in the same room before this started? What gender is the other
snake & are you SURE this one's a female? Are you thawing her food properly & is there any change of sources? Any other new pets in the home? Or other things going
on that might be freaking her out? (like a cat jumping on her cage?)

Deborah of Stewart Reptiles raises BPs...pay attn to her suggestions in this recent thread:
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...highlight=ride

[dakski]

Already been said, but I'll summarize key points.

1. She's right around the age and weight when they often start going on longer fasts.

2. Weight loss seems in line for 5 months, but if you are worried, or have other concerns, a stool sample (if you can get one) and ruling out any other issues makes sense (RI is an example of something major that would make a BP stop eating).

3. Offer the same food items she's used to eating, but not more than every 3-4 weeks if she's fasted this long. When my BP, Shayna (who turns 8 this September) starts her winter fasts, and I am sure of it (2-3 refusals - and she's offered a small rat every 2 weeks), I begin offering every 3-4 weeks at a minimum until she takes a meal in spring.

It doesn't hurt to make sure the food is properly defrosted and then warmed up for her right before offering.

4. When they are not interested, it's normal for them to seem afraid or bothered by the prey items.

It's also normal to stay on the cool side, not be out at night (hunting for food), etc.

5. A move, even in a room, can (potentially) throw a BP off food for a bit, especially a happy and healthy one.

[Zincubus]

I’ll just throw this in here ..

A while back a got the chance of a stunning Pied Royal ... a decent sized lad 1.6kg at a bargain price ..


You know what’s coming now ..

He refused to eat for 15 MONTHS thankfully with ill effects and hardly any weight loss .. always looked great and was nice and active ( evenings) for the duration.

I tried every way of offering food .. always frozen thawed stuff - including mice / rats / hamsters/ young gerbils / multi-mates and young guinea pigs , day old chicks .. he never showed the slightest interest in anything !!

Then one day after trying a couple of chicks with no success as usual I decided to give the chicks to my two albino royals and because it was their first time with chicks I cut the chicks heads off !

For some bizarre reason I put the two chick heads back into the Pied Royal’s viv in a dish ... both heads had gone the next morning and the Pied ate two FULL chicks the following evening and every ten - 14 days since ....


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[nukemike77]

She finally ate!! I appreciate all of your insight into the matter. I double checked the temps and humidity, all were good, so it was just a waiting game and test of nerves lol. Hopefully she'll start eating regularly again and all will be well until she decides to fast again. Thank you all again!!

[Bogertophis]

Congratulations! For now, anyway...

[Zincubus]

She finally ate!! I appreciate all of your insight into the matter. I double checked the temps and humidity, all were good, so it was just a waiting game and test of nerves lol. Hopefully she'll start eating regularly again and all will be well until she decides to fast again. Thank you all again!!

Excellent news. !!


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[muddoc]

I'll just throw my two cents in the ring, since I happened to stumble on this post. In this case, meaning the animal is an adult and not a hatchling, my thoughts are as follows. I have spent many years trying to unlock the psychology of a Ball POython. I always try to think about what they do what they do and why. In this case, my best guess is that the female is ready to breed. While I know many pet owners aren't interested in breeding, and I am not saying it is a necessity if you aren't interested in doing that, but that may be the problem. What I mean by that is we have to think about the evolution of these animals (all snakes for that matter) and what they are designed to do. They really only do three things in life.
1. Search for food and eat
2. Search for shelter, which is used for digesting food, getting out of the elements (i.e. possible low humidity environments or too hot environments or a place to set up an ambush to complete step 1).
3. Search for a mate and propagate the species.

With that said, as an adult, I think many males and/or females will go off feed, but they are looking to breed and do one of the few things they were born to do. My description is purely to try and help people understand why they may be fasting. However, this could be anomolous if the husbandry isn't spot on or there is some other internal issue (i.e. liver failure, cancer, parasites, etc.)

Most of the time I think that the keeper is way more stressed than the kept.