one month and counting.........

[Reptile King]

As you may have already guessed my normal male has gone one solid month without eating. I have tried almost everything. Last night I pre-scented the room for a while and while watching him he was going nuts. He was slithering all around and flicking his tongue like he was ready to eat!!!!!!!!!! I offered the frozen/thawed rat and you guessed it..........he smelled it and crawled away. I will try again next week.

For those that are wondering..........88 degrees on the hot, 83 on the cool side, 2X3 Reptile Basics enclosure, been in the same enclosure for 5 months, humidity is around 50 degrees when not sheeding, substrate is paper, weighs 440 grams, hatched in August 2009.

The only thing I can figure is that my female is directly above him. Can he sense that she is above him and have other things on his mind besides eating? My female will eat anything that has fur on it. She has turned down a meal twice that I can think of. She is due to eat tomorrow night and I can promise you all that she will eat!!!!!!!!!!!! My male........is driving me CRAZY!!

I have read that ball pythons are infamous for going off of food and I have read numerous posts here concerning the same thing.

For those that have been in my shoes what finally worked for you all???????

I feel like having a stern talk with him!!!!!

[A.VinczeBPs]

1) Maybe raise temp for him to the normal 90-94?
2) Yes, he might be smelling the female
3) It's that time of year for males, give him another month, that's when they seem to snap out of it the most.
4) Good luck!

[Jeremy78]

Does he have a hide? If not you should get two identical, one for each side. Next time try warming up the rodent. After you thaw it at room temp put it in a ziploc baggie and put the bag in some hot tap water for about 30 min. You can also try offering smaller prey. Did you do the all to enticing zombie dance? Hold the rat by the scruff and dance it about 2 inches from his nose. Don't be too persistent with feeding as it can stress him. Only try once per week. If your handling him, stop until he eats. Pretty much leave him alone except for cleaning poop/shed/ water. If all else fails try popping the rat in his hide with him over night.

Hope this works out for yeah, Jeremy.

[Kaorte]

That is a rather large enclosure for such a small male. Also for such a small male, its a wee bit early for him to be off feed due to a breeding response. But if he is, something as simple as raising the temps could snap him out of it.

[BPelizabeth]

Like others raise the hot end temps up a smidge. Also hit that mouse with a blow dryer right before offering. That might just do the trick. I noticed that after my snakes get past 500 grams....a couple of them got a little picky and were not banging mice like they use to.

[steveb]

I was in the same boat. Tried everything to no avail. Then yesterday I tried a mouse instead of rat and he took it. Ate 2 mice.