struck, constricted but did not eat

[junji98]

hello,

so vernon's has fed twice already. pretty successful feeds in my opinion. we have been feeding him a hopper every 5 days. anyways, he was scheduled to feed today. we dangled the mouse and sure enough, he struck. he constricted it too. but then he lost interest and let it go. has this happened to anyone before? should i try to refeed it to him today, or just get it out and try again next week? i am inclined towards the second option, but would like to hear your opinions on the matter as well.

thanks.

ed

[Jeanne]

Mine do this from time to time. Usually it is cause someone walked by them making them feel unsafe to eat or whatever goes on in a bp's mind. I leave the dead rodent in with them, eventually, mine eat it within an hour or so.

[tigerlily]

I've got one boy that's done that the last two weeks. One week he was in shed, and I don't know what was up last week. And both times I did leave it overnight, and it was refused. I wouldn't be too concerned as long as you have doubled checked all of your husbandry aspects.

[JLC]

I wouldn't try to feed again today. It won't hurt your snake to wait until the next scheduled feeding. You might try feeding every 7 days instead of 5, too. Who really knows what's going on in little snakey minds...but perhaps he reflexively killed the mouse, but decided he wasn't hungry enough to go to all that trouble of actually getting it down. (It does look like an awful lot of work, doesn't it? LOL) Anyhow...from my understanding, feeding every 7 days is plenty, even for hatchlings.

[Adam_Wysocki]

If it continues to happen it could be too large of a prey item (some ball pythons just like smaller rodents), a sign of stress, and even a sign of illness.

-adam

[junji98]

as an update, i was about to remove the mouse, but just out of curiousity, tried to dangle it again. he struck and this time, consumed it quite quickly. i guess he was just shy a while ago because many were watching (me, my kids, nannie). anywas, all is well and i am happy. thanks for all the responses. ball pythons rule!

ed

[Adam_Wysocki]

ball pythons rule!

truer words have never been spoken.

-adam