My boyfriend and I recently purchased a ball python, (Approximately a month ago, (s)he's a normal juvenile)
(s)he's very stubborn when it comes to eating and refused to do so for the first three weeks of living with us. I know this is very common, but I'm still very concerned. I've been told that feeding live would help him to start eating, but I am VERY uncomfortable doing so. I understand that most breeders are doing it, but I hate the idea that the mouse could hurt Jambi, (s)he's still very small and thin. (S)he's also been fed f/t before being adopted by us (to my knowledge).

In regards to feeding, we brought Jambi (our snake) into a separate container for the first two weeks and let him sit in there for an hour, and he seemed to show little to know interest in it, so the third week we did the same thing but put both the snake and mouse into the terrarium for a little under twenty four hours, but again he did not eat. After three weeks of unsuccessful feeding we assist fed him. He ate it in the separate container and we later put him back into his terrarium (10 gallon) and let him be.

Is there anything more that we can do to help him get comftorbal with us and feel safer as well as eat?

Tank setup:
We currently have two hides ( a cold (75-80 degrees) and warm (90 degrees)), a UTH, a heat lamp (both connected to a thermostat) humidity level of in between 45%-55%, aspen bedding, a vine, a water bowl (placed underneath the lamp), black cardboard around three walls of it's glass terrarium, and crumpled up news paper around his tank.


This is the best picture I can find of his terrarium before we added the lamp, vine, and newspaper.


This is Jambi, just showing you guys his size.


Not the greatest picture, (sorry) but this is what his cage looks like now, ( I know the temperatures are low I had just recently removed the hides to get you guys a picture of Jambi)