Strange Feeding Response and Tips for Feeding in Enclosure?

[royalreilly]

This post is a wild ride, so please hold on tight. TLDR at the bottom because I ramble a lot when I'm nervous, haha.

So my ~4.5 year old male BP has started acting strange about feeding. For the past 2 years or so he's been eating about once every other week. However since summer started he's been giving feeding responses and "telling" me he wants food closer to once a week. I usually cave but I don't want him to get too "chubby" because of it. This last feeding I waited 2 weeks to feed him again. His feeding response was absolutely INSANE. Before I even got the rat out of the plastic bag or opened his enclosure he was right up at the glass raising his head and flicking his tongue.

Here's where the story gets "cringey" I guess. So I've always moved him to a separate feeding tub to feed him. Before you get onto me, when I first got him that's the thing I read all over the internet to do. In recent years I've learned that that's not necessarily the best way to do it, but I've also been under the impression that as long as he didn't show signs of stress, regurge, etc. it was fine to keep doing it since he was already used to it. However, I think the events of this week's feeding have changed my mind.

So I live with my parents. I went out to them and asked for "back up" just to make sure he wouldn't like, jump out while I was turned around getting the rat out. I thought to myself, "Okay, I think this might be the night to try just feeding him in the enclosure, because he is NOT going to be picked up without striking." However, my dad came in saying "we can't do that, he's going to get cage aggression if we feed him in here, we've always done it the other way" and etc. I tried to tell him that cage aggression has been proven to not really be true, and I knew the snake better than him, and I though feeding in the enclosure would be safer that night. Well he grabbed the snake anyway and moved him, narrowly missing being struck. When the snake was in the separate bin he was still going crazy and he ended up hitting his own tail with a strike. It was very quick and he didn't pierce his own scales, but it made me very upset that my dad didn't listen to me and that ended up happening.

I fed him on Wednesday night. Yesterday (Thursday) he was still giving a feeding response when I would move past the enclosure. Surely he can't really be still "hungry" after eating a whole rat?? I know some snakes can still be giving the feeding response a while after eating, but he's usually a rock for a few days after a meal. He has not been weighed in a long time. I'm planning on weighing him tomorrow during the day since it'll be over 48 hrs since eating and hopefully in the daylight he won't be thinking about food so much. For reference he currently eats f/t small rats and has for a while. If he's over 500 grams I guess I should consider trying medium rats?



TDLR: So this post has really 2 main questions.
1) Why is he suddenly acting this way when he never has before? Growth spurt? Rebellious hungry teenager phase? I really don't know, lol.
2) How can I safely switch to feeding in the enclosure? My parents' 2 biggest concerns are cage aggression, and the possibility of him eating substrate. I don't know how to convince them that cage aggression isn't real. And how to I prevent him from eating substrate? We use coco-fiber. I know you can set the rat on top of something, but won't he still drag it around? Any tips for transitioning and easing my parents' worries? (Please, they won't believe me even though he's my snake and I'm an adult )

Oh and here's some recent pics of him so you can kind of get an idea of his weight class / size. I'd say he's a nice thick guy, but not unhealthily chubby. But it's really difficult to tell if a snake is over/underweight, so I'd love to hear other opinions. I DO NOT want to cave and feed him every 7 days if it's okay not to, because I'm so worried about him becoming overweight.


Thank you soooooo much! I know you can't necessarily help with the human aspect of this situation, but I know you guys always have good, kind-hearted advice. (Also I will just say real quickly that I really love my family and I don't want to be berating them / making them feel bad even if they make some mistakes. <3) I'm honestly really stressed out about this situation and my family not listening to me, but you guys are always so sweet. Appreciate you guys on this forum.