I think part of this is that your 'average' person who goes into a pet store and buys a ball python has no idea about proper husbandry. This results in URIs and refusals to eat. As a vet tech who used to work at a practice that dealt with exotics I used to say that if you looked at a ball python funny it would stop eating for 6 months just to spite you. And that was also the sort of thing I heard when I first considered getting into snakes and was pondering between ball pythons, corn snakes, and king snakes.
I ended up with corn snakes instead because they're thinner... and they will usually eat F/T and any time you offer.









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