My ball python went on a bit of a hunger strike for a while. This is the dead of summer so I usually expect him to be ravenous, but I couldn't get him to eat F/T or live. But he still seemed happy and wasn't loosing weight fast. When almost two months went by though, he started looking skinny. A friend said to drop an F/t rat in his enclosure or a small dark box and leave him in there till he eats it. I did just that two weeks ago and he did eat it. I tried feeding him again last night but he wasn't striking. So I dropped the rat in last night and he had eaten it overnight, so I am happy about that, but now I have a few questions: Have any of you experienced your pythons not interested in attacking and striking their food? Do snakes get lazy? Is the strike response important or is it more important that he eats in general?
Hi enclosure has perfect parameters and he is still gentle and sweet. I used to feed him in the middle of the day, but then he just started refusing even live food. I switched him to f/t after the long winter since I knew he would be hungry enough to eat anything. After a month and a half, he took a f/t rat in Feb and struck and wrapped. He did it again at the middle of March. But then he stopped eating until two weeks ago and I had to resort to leaving him stuck with his food. But I tried getting him to strike. I would dangle and move the f/t rat around, but he would just turn away, and he did the same with live. Now that he has eaten at night in his enclosure without striking from me I wonder is the strike response is important, or the fact that he is domesticated can make him lazy and it's ok.
Thoughts?
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