another "my bp wont eat" thread.... please look

[loonunit]

Yeah, that's tough.

So, once upon a time back in 2009 I bought a pair of 2007 hets from a guy in Florida. I was so excited to get into breeding, I figured they were already two years old, maybe I could breed them that autumn. No way--- when they arrived the female was 650 grams and the male was maybe 450 grams, and they would. Not. Eat.

I tried everything: mice, rats, live, thawed, zombie dance, tuna fish juice, braining, gerbil bedding. I took them for rides in the car because somebody said that sometimes fresh air triggered appetite. Whatever!

After four weeks I noticed the female poking her head out when I microwaved some leftover curry from the Indian restaurant down the street. OKAY. So I went to the reptile store and bought a live hopper and dabbed curry sauce on its head, and I'll be darned if she didn't take it. So then I got a f/t mouse and dabbed curry on it, and she took that, too.

OKAY.

And she kept on taking f/t mice every week after that. As long as I brought home Indian take out and shared some of it with her. She kept this up for about 3 months. Whatever, as long as she was eating.

Because Mr. Neurotic wasn't. Nope. I've never had such a neurotic ball python---he was scared of everything. I finally got him to take a live hopper after EIGHT WEEKS. And then he went back on hunger strike for another 3 weeks. It took me months to work him up to large mice, months to get him on f/t, and then of course he regressed and went back on hunger strike and it took another year to get him back on f/t adult mice.

So I'm real sorry your new albino is pulling this on you. She's probably neurotic and doesn't like the change of surroundings. Plus she's at 500 grams, which is the magic weight when they just stop eating, sometimes. She's going to stress you out, but you gotta just keep trying everything every week until she finally settles in and decides she's hungry after all. I really think live hopper mice are the best bet for picky eaters, because they skitter around. But sometimes a snake really likes rats. And sometimes a snake just doesn't care about you, or your rodents, and they're just not going to eat.

And this is what happened with my two hets:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...st-clutch-ever)

Picky Lois and her neurotic boyfriend were still my first successful breeders! Neither one of them will look at a rat twice, though, even today...