To start off - I actually came across a thread on here that was an almost identical situation to mine right now and it had a LOT of good advice, and I’ve tried a lot of it, with mainly the difference being I haven’t tried live prey yet - I’ll get to why. The previous thread - https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...-back-on-track

I had seen this baby BP at the big box store a few weeks in a row when I went to pick up dinner for my other guy, and he was clearly underweight and not thriving. He was marketed as an “exotic ball python” so he was pricey and the employees couldn’t give me any more info than that, but my best guess was he’s some kind of spider morph, because I had caught him wobbling and corkscrewing a few times I visited, not severe, but noticeable. When I pointed it out, the employee laughed and said, “oh, yeah, he’s got a bit of an attitude!” Sigh. They told me he was between 2-3 months old, and that was about four and a half weeks ago, so I’m estimating he’s around four months old.

anyway, long story short, I got him home, set him up in a small tub to start (similar setup to what’s suggested in the pinned thread about baby BPs,) for about a week, then moved to a 10-gal tank with lots of clutter, several hides, the usual. I found I wasn’t able to keep a good temperature gradient in that so a week and half after, moved him up to a 15-gal tank that was longer and narrower, and that’s where he is now. I know that’s a bit big for him right now but he has a lot of hiding places and keeping the temp and humidity just right hasn’t been a problem.

The store employee told me he’d eaten a week before I took him home, which was a little more than a month ago, so I’m estimating it’s been about five weeks since he ate. They were feeding him two pinkies every week, and he was 56g when I brought him home… as of today, he’s 47-48g (he was wiggling a lot on the scale) and hasn’t had any interest in any of the f/t fuzzies I’ve offered, and I once tried offering pinkies from the same store in hopes that he’d maybe eat something familiar, but no go. I’ve tried blasting em with a heat gun too and he didn’t even turn his head. I thought I was maybe on to something tonight because he was flicking his tongue a lot, but any time I went near him with the mouse, he balled up, he almost recoiled from it, like he’s scared. He’s never had live prey and the reason I’m hesitant to try is because of the wobble… but it’s hard for me to get a gauge on exactly how bad it is because he almost never leaves his cool hide. I never see him moving around the tank. I catch him soaking and drinking at the water dish but aside from that he is always in that hide. Since he moved into the big tank I’ve left him alone except for offering food, up until this last week, I’ve been sticking my hand in the hide once in a while just to make sure he’s still alive…! I don’t want to stress him but I also don’t want to come home to a dead baby snake and I haven’t seen him out of the hide in more than a week.

he seems pretty energetic when he does come out of the tank, and has a good grip for how skinny he is, and I don’t think he’s dehydrated, because like I said, I catch him in the water dish all the time, but all the same, he did have a bath today. I just don’t really know where to go from here. At what point do I stop the “just keep trying” approach and consider other measures? I’m thinking next week I’ll have to offer live prey, I read about the bowl trick, and a fuzzy mouse shouldn’t be too dangerous for him, right?

He has a vet appointment coming up this Friday which, might now do anything except stress him out, I don’t know, but I want to make sure he’s at least healthy, as much so as he can be at that weight… (I am trying to figure out how to post my pics but apparently I am dumb so will get some pics in as soon as I can)