Beans is being stubborn, or just picky.

[jmcrook]

45 min a day is incredibly excessive. You should not be handling, touching, or even looking at this animal funny until it takes 3 consecutive meals with zero issues. Constantly pacing the cage is not begging to be handled, it is a sign of stress and husbandry being off. Snakes do not “like” being handled, they tolerate it at best.


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[dakski]

I am going to be blunt here. I think your breeder is full of baloney. Adult BP's stress with frequent handling. I recommend handling adult, established BP's, 10-20 minutes 2-4X a week max and never on a feeding day or for two days after feeding.

I am not a fan of your breeder. Beans is thin, not established, and he/she is telling you handle daily for 30-45 minutes for what benefit? I believe this is counterproductive on all fronts and dangerous for Beans.

You are in no way shape or form out of the danger zone with him. Until he's eating regularly, putting on substantial weight, etc. you should LEAVE HIM ALONE!

I've said it and others have said it. We've all tried to be nice and soft about it. I am done with that because you are not listening. 3 consecutive meals without a refusal is the minimum for a healthy BP to become established and then you work up to more frequent handling. A young and potentially sick or malnourished BP, like Beans, needs more time and less interaction.

Someone needs to tell you Beans health and probably life is at risk.

We want Beans to have a happy and long life with you. That means throwing out short-term thinking and gratification and doing what's best for Beans.

Please listen to us. Beans is depending on it.

BP's who aren't hiding are often stressed. As mentioned in above posts, get husbandry perfect. Temps, humidity, hides, etc. That's all been addressed so I am not going to beat a dead horse on that.

Further, snakes do not have the capacity for "joy" or "excitement." They are also not cuddly animals like dogs who do enjoy human contact. Snakes are either content, hungry, defensive, or in pain/uncomfortable. That's about it. They have no frontal lobe. They don't really think, they don't have feelings per se, and they very much live in the moment. Please do not anthropomorphize Beans, or project your feelings on him.

What he needs is not cuddles or play time, but rest and food until he's much stronger.

I am so sorry to be so blunt and harsh here, but we want you to understand what is at stake. We also want this to be an enjoyable hobby long-term for you and be able to enjoy Beans for many years to come.

No one is mad at you, or angry with you, but we are worried about Beans.

Any questions or clarification needed on husbandry or what I have said, just ask.

[BeansTheDerp]

UPDATE: I have not used this forum in months due to frustration, someone said I wasn't using the advice I was being given but I had been stating that I had, we found out that the problem was that the F/T does not work with him, we tried using everyone's recommendations and even ones from the breeder and a shop owner but nothing worked, the live rat we had gotten was also too big and Beans was afraid of it, now months later, Beans is over 300 grams (I'll weigh him today but at the vet they said 300 and something I don't remember) and he has not missed a meal. we have decided to stick to feeding him live for now! Beans is still living in a tub with a pet safe mesh top and we changed the aspen to coco-husk. after Beans's appointment at the vet (April 29th) the vet let us know that not only was he extremely behaved but also that he was very very healthy. we also got him a bigger water bowl, and a vine for him to crawl on. (I have found him numerous times sitting on it like a green-tree python) Beans still get's his attention and fun story, his vet appointment was on the day that he would be fed, he had been handled by the vet but when we got home, we waited a couple hours before giving him the rat but after we did he took it with-in a span of 30 seconds. the next week I decided to try something..... we held him on Wednesday, Wednesday is the day we use to give him a break so he get's used to his enclosure not being opened to get him attention. but this time he held him on Wednesday, and for not as long on Thursday and as I put him back in the enclosure I put the rat in as well, and in 13 seconds (that's right I counted) he had it in his jaws and was constricting it, the rat was kicking at him but I used my snake hook to hold down it's feet because it was kicking him harshly and I didn't want Beans to get hurt. Beans did not regurge this meal, he was all fine. that was weeks ago, anyways, Beans has a good feeding response and is very healthy, and still joins us on movie nights (he seems to prefer star wars ) NOTE: I still do not hold him until he poop's because of an incident where we gave him two days to digest and thennnn he pooped on me.


anyways, thank you to everyone who tried to help with the F/T

[Bogertophis]

Glad to hear he's eating & gaining weight for you. Most of us realize how hard it is to get some snakes to take f/t prey; I hope you'll try again at some point in the future, for his safety, but for now it's best he gain weight & strength anyway. (It's been a while but I recall he was thin, & for a young snake, health takes precedence.) It's also fortunate that handling isn't bothering him prior to feeding him- some snakes it does, & others not so much, so when advising you here, all we can do is speculate- offer you possible explanations- because we're not actually seeing him & spending time with him as you are.

[BeansTheDerp]

Thank you! I do plan to try F/T again in the future but whenever we would try both me and my father would get angry and end up getting in arguments over Beans and feeding him, so we both thought for now for our well being and Beans's that we would stick to live for now but I do plan on trying again in the future, we had heard of this brand of "sausages" that are made of mouse and other things and they're basically a replacement for F/T rats! they come with juices that you put on the sausages to make them smell like the food it's supposed to replace, so for ball pythons it would be this type of rat. we won't try yet because it's pretty expensive and we need to be sure we want to invest in that.



ALSO I NOTICED, I accidentally said WEEKS ago in my update, I meant that as like last week, lol

[Bogertophis]

Thank you! I do plan to try F/T again in the future but whenever we would try both me and my father would get angry and end up getting in arguments over Beans and feeding him, so we both thought for now for our well being and Beans's that we would stick to live for now but I do plan on trying again in the future, we had heard of this brand of "sausages" that are made of mouse and other things and they're basically a replacement for F/T rats! they come with juices that you put on the sausages to make them smell like the food it's supposed to replace, so for ball pythons it would be this type of rat. we won't try yet because it's pretty expensive and we need to be sure we want to invest in that.



ALSO I NOTICED, I accidentally said WEEKS ago in my update, I meant that as like last week, lol

I've heard that BPs are very hard to get on the man-made "sausages" for snakes- & even more difficult than just f/t or f/k, so it's best if you can try just one before you buy a bunch.

[Bo 17]

I agree with all of the advice above. I personally have a different method of preparing feeders. I’m not saying mine is better or anything it’s just if you want to try something different. I place my frozen feeders in a plastic bag (not complete sealed) the I put it in the fridge for about 5-6 hours to thaw ( the time depends on the size of the pray I feed my young snake small mice). Then I heat up the mouse by putting it directly under the heat lamp for a few minutes. This always heats it up fast and works for me. Also three weeks really isn’t too big a deal. I remember when I first got my BP he didn’t eat for a month and I was super freaked out. Just last month the same BP just ended a four month feeding strike and he’s totally fine. Just weigh him every once and a while to make sure he’s not losing too much weight. But not for a while! Like said above let him settle in first and he’ll probably start eating.

[Zincubus]

I haven’t the patience to read through the whole thread ..

Have you heard of or tried the hairdryer method of feeding thawed ??

Works rather brilliantly ..
Here’s 4 of mine all constricting their mice all fed in the space of about 90 seconds ..

I’ll send the method to the thread starter anyways


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[BeansTheDerp]

I haven’t the patience to read through the whole thread ..

Have you heard of or tried the hairdryer method of feeding thawed ??

Works rather brilliantly ..
Here’s 4 of mine all constricting their mice all fed in the space of about 90 seconds ..

I’ll send the method to the thread starter anyways


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WOW those snakes are big and so is that set-up, it looks awesome! as for the hair dryer method, we had tried that one night with no luck, we're hoping he'll take it in the future, but for now we're feeding him rat-pups and watching every second to make sure it doesn't get ugly (the rat being the attacker) and he's been doing well. we would sit there for like 30 minutes trying to get him to take the frozen rat and he wouldn't take it, but when we put the live rat pup in there he takes it within 30 seconds. his record for how fast it is is 13 seconds, hopefully we'll beat the record but with a F/T....

[BeansTheDerp]

I agree with all of the advice above. I personally have a different method of preparing feeders. I’m not saying mine is better or anything it’s just if you want to try something different. I place my frozen feeders in a plastic bag (not complete sealed) the I put it in the fridge for about 5-6 hours to thaw ( the time depends on the size of the pray I feed my young snake small mice). Then I heat up the mouse by putting it directly under the heat lamp for a few minutes. This always heats it up fast and works for me. Also three weeks really isn’t too big a deal. I remember when I first got my BP he didn’t eat for a month and I was super freaked out. Just last month the same BP just ended a four month feeding strike and he’s totally fine. Just weigh him every once and a while to make sure he’s not losing too much weight. But not for a while! Like said above let him settle in first and he’ll probably start eating.

fun fact, he actually went 4 weeks, which is when we gave up because I was convinced that was too long, but after giving him over 3 live meals we tried some more F/T and he had absolutely no interest, also we tried that method you mentioned as well, no luck. like I said, we'll try again sometime.