Getting your BP to eat

[Tricon7]

I recently bought a young BP from a seller, and I wonder how well he was looking after it, since immediately after getting it home and giving it water, he started drinking it, and as soon as I offered it a hopper, he attacked and ate it. That was about two weeks ago, and I offered it another hopper Saturday. He ignored it when it crawled around, sniffing, so I killed it and laid it his enclosure. He showed a bit of interest, but soon ignored it, so I had to throw it out before it started decomposing.

I took him out of his aquarium and put him in a round plastic container where there won't be any danger of him ingesting his chipped bedding while eating, and I did that again. No luck. After a while I put him back in his aquarium and put a flat dish in, and I laid the mouse on top of it and left. After a few hours he had gone back inside his hide spot without touching the mouse.

I don't know if two weeks is not long enough to wait between feedings, especially after just getting him, or if it should be soon enough.

[KMG]

How old is the snake? If it is the snake in your avatar it should be eating small or maybe medium rats.

Being that you have it on a two week schedule tells me its older and a hopper is not even a snack four a adult bp.

Sometimes when a snake graduates to larger pretty it will no longer recognize prey that is to small as a meal.

Usually feeding 10-15% of the snakes weight in grams is recommended.

Removing your snake from its home to feed is not needed or desired by your snake. The substrate will not be a problem. Moving your snake while it is looking to feed is just asking to get bit and stresses your snake which will sometimes make them loose interest in food. When a snake is stressed it will not eat because it wants to be ready to flee if needed and not have food in its belly.

[BranceM]

The snake in the OP's avatar looks like a RTB to me.

[KMG]

Oh, I can't tell on my tablet.

Taking a closer look I think your right. I didn't realize the snake was reaching up to the faucet. Its way to big to be a bp.

[FireStorm]

How old/big is the snake? Two weeks is plenty of time to wait between feedings. Most people feed hatchlings every 5 to 7 days. There are many factors that could contribute to your BP refusing food. Stress is the most common issue, but we will need some more info to figure out exactly what is going on. What are your temps (both hot and cold side)? How do you measure temps, and what is your heat source? How big is the enclosure, and how is it set up (hides, etc)? How often are you handling the snake?

From your post, I'm assuming you are using an aquarium. For a lot of ball pythons, being kept in an aquarium can be stressful, especially if you don't have lots of hiding places. They live underground in the wild, and don't spend much time out and about, so all that glass can make them feel pretty vulnerable. You can try covering the enclosure with a towel or blanket to make it feel safer. Also, offer food at night, in the dark, in the snake's enclosure (KMG is right on about that). They are nocturnal, after all.

[Tricon7]

How old/big is the snake? Two weeks is plenty of time to wait between feedings. Most people feed hatchlings every 5 to 7 days. There are many factors that could contribute to your BP refusing food. Stress is the most common issue, but we will need some more info to figure out exactly what is going on. What are your temps (both hot and cold side)? How do you measure temps, and what is your heat source? How big is the enclosure, and how is it set up (hides, etc)? How often are you handling the snake?

From your post, I'm assuming you are using an aquarium. For a lot of ball pythons, being kept in an aquarium can be stressful, especially if you don't have lots of hiding places. They live underground in the wild, and don't spend much time out and about, so all that glass can make them feel pretty vulnerable. You can try covering the enclosure with a towel or blanket to make it feel safer. Also, offer food at night, in the dark, in the snake's enclosure (KMG is right on about that). They are nocturnal, after all.

My avatar is a red-tailed boa I used to own, so no, it's not what I currently own.

My hot side is upper 80s, cool side lower 80s - at least when I have the heat lamp on. I have to turn it off during the night, since it stays in the room I'm in where I sleep and it gets too warm at night for me to sleep when the heat light is on. I did buy a heating pad for underneath the hot side, so he won't be completely without heat during the night (it's warm here anyway in Orlando). I have a temperature dials for each side that are affixed to the glass with some kind of velcro sticky.

The tank is a 45-gallon aquarium, and it has two hide boxes - one for each side. I don't yet have the back and sides of the tank covered, so I hope to get to that in the next few days. I want to take him out daily, but I don't get to all the time. My wife reluctantly let me get the snake, as she's definitely not a snake-person, so I can't really get it out when she's in the house too often.

[KMG]

My avatar is a red-tailed boa I used to own, so no, it's not what I currently own.

My hot side is upper 80s, cool side lower 80s - at least when I have the heat lamp on. I have to turn it off during the night, since it stays in the room I'm in where I sleep and it gets too warm at night for me to sleep when the heat light is on. I did buy a heating pad for underneath the hot side, so he won't be completely without heat during the night (it's warm here anyway in Orlando). I have a temperature dials for each side that are affixed to the glass with some kind of velcro sticky.

The tank is a 45-gallon aquarium, and it has two hide boxes - one for each side. I don't yet have the back and sides of the tank covered, so I hope to get to that in the next few days. I want to take him out daily, but I don't get to all the time. My wife reluctantly let me get the snake, as she's definitely not a snake-person, so I can't really get it out when she's in the house too often.

And the snakes age?

The uth needs a tstat if you don't have one. The uth will not heat the tank at night. It will provide a hotspot but the rest of the tank needs to stay above 78 and I really doubt your room is.

[FireStorm]

My avatar is a red-tailed boa I used to own, so no, it's not what I currently own.

My hot side is upper 80s, cool side lower 80s - at least when I have the heat lamp on. I have to turn it off during the night, since it stays in the room I'm in where I sleep and it gets too warm at night for me to sleep when the heat light is on. I did buy a heating pad for underneath the hot side, so he won't be completely without heat during the night (it's warm here anyway in Orlando). I have a temperature dials for each side that are affixed to the glass with some kind of velcro sticky.

The tank is a 45-gallon aquarium, and it has two hide boxes - one for each side. I don't yet have the back and sides of the tank covered, so I hope to get to that in the next few days. I want to take him out daily, but I don't get to all the time. My wife reluctantly let me get the snake, as she's definitely not a snake-person, so I can't really get it out when she's in the house too often.

I can see several issues here that could be causing the problem.

1) You are going to have to find a way to keep your temps from dropping at night. If they drop at night, he's not going to eat. Also, you really need to get a better way to measure temps than what you have. Those sticky dials are horribly unreliable.

2) A 45 gal tank is huge for a BP, especially if he's young. Either move him to a smaller, tub type setup (which make make the temps easier to maintain since it's more enclosed) or black out the sides and put crumpled paper everywhere to make him feel safer.

3) Stop handling him until he's eating regularly. Just leave him alone except what's necessary for cage cleaning, water changes, etc.

[FireStorm]

Just wanted to add one more thing about those thermometers. Recently I posted a few suggestions on my website of inexpensive indoor/outdoor thermometers that would work much better than the dials you have. I figured I'd just link to that, instead of looking the links up again. So, here you go, I hope this helps. I need to do one for thermostats, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
http://firestormreptiles.com/weblog/...rmometers.html

[Tricon7]

Thanks for the input.