Finally Past "The Wall"

[meowmeowkazoo]

My spider girl, Charlotte, has certainly tried my patience over the years.

I've had her since she was a hatchling, and she has always been a picky eater. She's only ever eaten mice, and only live ones. For a while I got her to take rats, but then she stopped eating altogether.

And of course near the 1000 gram mark, she hit "the wall" that female ball pythons often hit where they start refusing food. She refused for months, and then would only accept mice. At her new size, the cost of mice was adding up, and when I bred them myself the stink was horrific. My only other option was to drive 45 minutes away to a man who gave them to me for free. Which was great, but he fed them on what looked like sugar cereal (fruit loops?), so they weren't the healthiest mice around.

I was finally able to get a breeding trio of african soft fur rats, which Charlotte readily accepted as a substitute to the mice. However, she would only eat hoppers, and the adults seemed to intimidate her.

It got to the point where I put her up for sale, because I was so frustrated, especially when my other ball pythons were such good eaters. I had tried so many things. A hide, multiple hides, no hides, different subtrates, etc.

Finally, as I was observing her failing to strike and kill yet another live meal, a thought occurred to me. Her wobble is only really noticeable when she is hunting, and she seemed very...insecure. Sometimes she would strike and miss, and if the prey happened to get too close she would recoil and hide. Even when she did manage to kill something, she was very awkward in the way she would try to eat it. I wondered if having more space to maneuver and hunt would help her feel more secure.

So I bought a 70 quart bin (she was in a 41 quart), and prepped it for her. Gave her a few days to settle down, and then offered an ADULT soft fur rat. Just to see what would happen. She poked her head out of her hide, and within seconds she had struck and coiled around it. It was like witnessing a miracle. Suddenly she was a confident hunter and all of the shyness and clumsiness was gone.

She has eaten three adult soft furs this week alone. She has missed a strike once or twice, but immediately corrects and catches her prey. She has turned into a ravenous beast, and I may actually have to purchase some more adult soft furs from an outside source before she gobbles up everything I have.