Things are

[BallKingdom]

looking better. In case you don't know, Monty took a gerbil last night. Now he's way more active, crawling around, and when held he's holding on nice and tight. Since the gerbil barely had any effect on him I wanna try another in a couple days. Monday probly, after he's settled into his new cages. I'm just so happy that this feeding problem might be outta my way. He's already doing better.

[JLC]

That's awesome John! Are you planning on sticking with gerbils, or are you going to try and switch back to more traditional rodents once his appetite is firmly established again?

I'm finally breaking down and plan to buy some live fuzzies from the pet store tomorrow. Hopefully Caesar will eat those and regain his appetite, too. He's still active when held and seems "normal" but I'm growing more and more worried about him. He hasn't eaten since early Dec. This probably belongs in the colubrid area, but it seemed relavent to your feeding issues.

[BallKingdom]

I'm sticking with gerbils for now. When his fat stores are built back up and he's grown a bit I'm gonna scent rats.

Try gerbils if that don't work, gerbils are magick

[Hoomi]

(snickers) *remembers being told very tersely on that other forum that gerbils were NOT the "natural food" for Ball Pythons*

I've heard of asking pet shops for their used Gerbil bedding to roll your feeder rats in to try and "gerbil scent" them. Knowing how little odor gerbils have to our sense, versus how strong the rat scent can be, I really wondered how well that could work?

[Marla]

Apparently jerboas are a common feed item for bp's in the wild, but there are some areas where gerbil territory and bp territory overlap and I doubt they'd turn one down as a free meal.

[BallKingdom]

I've never really looked into it, and gerboas are too small. Gerbils worked, so I'm not gonna cry about it possibly not being their natural food.

[JLC]

Gerboas are bigger than gerbils, aren't they? The ones I saw in the pet store certainly were. Weird looking critters, those gerboas!!

[Marla]

John, I didn't mean to say that gerbils weren't good bp food or anything, but it is easy to mix up names between gerbils and jerboas, so I didn't know if maybe that was what happened. As far as I'm concerned, if it's a healthy rodent (pre-death) that doesn't hurt your snake, it's a good candidate for a food source.

[BallKingdom]

I was just saying that while in some areas they may not be their food choice. And I really have never looked into their natural food items much either. I just know they sure worked for me

So how big are gerboas? The look teeny.

[Marla]

I'll let Judy answer how big they are because I've never seen one in person and couldn't find a weight for them when I pulled together average rodent weights a couple weeks ago. I'm glad Monty's eating again, regardless of how likely it is or isn't he'd eat that in the wild.