ASF's turning food to dust. Why?

[Herp4life11]

So I have had a trio of ASF's for 3weeks 2moro and I feed them Mazuri 9F and the seem to like it jsut havent seen any prego's yet but the thing im wondering is that I got about 5 more females about a week ago or so and set them up in a diff. tub and gave them water, Mazuri 9F, a hide, wheel, and lots of things to chew on. Yesterday I went to go check on them and found that they turned the 9F to dust. Does anyone know why???

this it looks like...

[Herp4life11]

Sorry the pic I guess didn't load or something. Anyone know how to get it up here so I can show ya'll what they did?

[RichsBallPythons]

Africans dont start producing babies till they are sexually mature at about 3-4 months of age.

Also food in the cage is a waste of money and you will continue to lose food to this. You need a hopper to hold food for it to last longer and not get wasted. Hides are not needed, but nesting materials more so. Wheels are good as they love to run to keep busy. Be sure water is provided via water bottle and now bowls.

[Herp4life11]

Thanx, but I was wondering why they are turning thier food to dust. I already knoe breeding and care tips.

Thanx tho

[RichsBallPythons]

ASF are chewers. Without Food Hoppers they will do it non stop

[Herp4life11]

I have a hopper in there filled with 9F rodent block.

[Herp4life11]

[Mike Cavanaugh]

[QUOTE=RichsBallPythons;1481187]Also food in the cage is a waste of money and you will continue to lose food to this. You need a hopper to hold food for it to last longer and not get wasted. QUOTE]

ASF are chewers. Without Food Hoppers they will do it non stop

Just wanted to say that in general I totally disagree with this. The key to having them not waste food is NOT food hoppers. The only way to avoid food waste is to not offer too much food. Trust me, I have had my fair share of food hoppers as you can see in the stickies. they are a total waste of time.

You can read about this in detail here http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...nd-sisters.... but in a nutshell, as long as you are giving the proper amount of food for the time period in between cleaning, they will eat all of it with little to no waste... and that is with just dumping the food on the substrate. They are rats. they will eat almost every last crumb of food when not overfed.