I am a new exotic pet owner and I got my first ball python on May 24th. I selected him from PetSmart because he seemed very active. I knew that ball pythons had a reputation of being picky eaters so I thought that maybe and active snake that was flicking out his tongue wouldn't cause me much trouble. The pet store employee told me to feed him twice a week since he was only 3 or 4 months old when I purchased him.

He has not eaten once since I brought him home.

I was concerned after the first few weeks of his hunger strike and now it is very apparent that he is losing weight.

I have tried everything.

I have tried feeding him frozen fuzzies and pinkies, a live hour old gerbil, I have fed him in a large box, medium box, a small box, his tank, I hve made the frozen food "dance" around the tank/box for 30 minutes, I have left the frozen mouse in there for up to 3 days, I have left the live gerbil in there for over 24 hours and I have changed his heat lamps to a higher temperature. His tank is now 90 degrees with the humidity ranging from 40%-55%.

He shows no signs of shedding.

He is a 18 inch long 5 month old.

I am at my wits end. I had heard of this spray that you are supposed to spray on frozen food to make it smell good to a reptile, but I have no idea what that is and was unable to find anything like this at a pet store.

I have been told that perhaps I should have someone force feed him, but I am reluctant to do so because if he wont eat on his own how would force feeding him tempt him to eat on his on in the future? Also, I heard it could kill the snake.

Long story short-- Help.