New owner, feeding problem?

[dolla777]

I just bought a ball python yesterday after about a whole month worth of research. I bought him from a guy I know around the way who breed ball pythons. Earlier today I fed him a F/T fuzzie mice. It took him less than 2 minutes to make a strike, but he did not constrict the mice at all. Everything else went fine, he swallowed the mice with no problems and you can see the bump in his stomach from the mice. I had originally planned to switch from F/T to live but now I'm scared that he might not be able to kill a live mice. Any tips and help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[ballpythonluvr]

This sounds perfectly normal to me. Not an issue when the snake is eating f/t. If I may ask, why would you want to switch the snake to live when it is eating f/t? Having a ball python eating f/t is a good thing in my book considering how picky they can be. It is your snake though essentially and you can do whatever what you want. Just my two cents here.

[hypnotixdmp]

Also, babies out of the egg can eat hoppers, bump that food size up!!!!


0.3 Normals (Coilette, Athena and Unknown)
1.1 Het Genetic Stripe (Bonnie and Clyde)
1.0 Pastel (De Sol)
1.0 Spider (Zeus)
1.0 Mojave (Prometheus)

0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Stella)

[RestlessRobie]

Sounds like a defensive strike to me. I would give your little guy a week and try again. This will give him a chance to settle down most likely he is stressed and was striking to say hey leave me alone. I almost always wait 5-7 days before trying to feed. I would also up the prey size a bit and then try F/T again.

[Rickys_Reptiles]

Why would you switch from f/t to live?

[barbie.dragon]

My albino hatchling wouldn't constrict the first time, all you have to do is tug on the tail a little bit and they'll constrict. I'm assuming my snake didn't constrict because she was used to eating live and if the rat doesn't move I guess she didn't feel the need to constrict. If you're doing any food switching I would try switching to rats, since its more economical.
And same question: why switch to live? mice smell bad and it's much much cheaper to get f/t