Hunger Strike with Small Ball

[Flikky]

My Female Pastel ball is 11 months old and weighs 543 grams. She hasn't eaten for 2 months now. She doesn't look very good at all. I've been leaving her alone, I've tried f/t mice and different sized rats. I've had her for 10 months and nothing has changed in that time. For the whole time she had been eating mice, never has taken a rat. I'm getting really frustrated. Any suggestions ? Thanks

[Kaorte]

What size enclosure is she in? Perhaps move to a smaller enclosure? Or clutter up the cage?

It can be tricky getting them to eat again.. I have a few that have been off feed for a while, but none that young.

[Flikky]

She is in a 32 QT tub. But she was eating just fine in there before. I do have a divider I can put in though.. I cluttered up her hide a few weeks ago. I'll put more in her tub

[Rickys_Reptiles]

Have you tried a live rat pup? They're harmless, you could leave it in there overnight.

[Flikky]

No I haven't. I'd like to avoid live if at all possible since I don't breed rats and have tons of frozen ones.

[bfirecat]

What substrate are you using?

I had a couple balls that refused to eat on paper towels, but I switched them to aspen and they ate the next day.

[mackynz]

What are you temps/humidity?

Feeding live might be worth a shot. Just be prepared if she doesn't eat. You could try feeding later at night as well, if you aren't already.

[shorty21030]

I know how you feel with this one. My lesser, when I first got him he was eating normally then when he got about 450 grams he just stopped eating. I tried everything from frozen rat pups to frozen mice. Then live rat pups and mice. He wanted nothing to do with them. He would flick his tongue for a second then just ignore everything. I even tried to scent the rat pup with soiled gerbil bedding and still nothing. I tried leaving him alone for 2 weeks and still nothing. I also tried all times of the day. The temps and humidity were good and he did not have any parasites. After about 2-3 months of this I needed to do something so I went to my local pet shop and got a very small gerbil. He ate it right away, so just to get his weight up I fed him a couple of gerbils for a few weeks. Then when the expo came around I got an ASF rat and he eats those right away too. So I just have a picky eater that just needs to make it really difficult on me since there is no one around me that breeds ASFs, so I have to go to the expo every month and stock up on ASFs for that month for him. haha