Blind? There's something weird about my ball python.

[Teacher's Pet]

I have a question. What do you think about this:
My 11 month old ball python was eating frozen/thawed mice for several months. When he graduated to small rats, he would sniff around the warm, dangling body but not strike at it ever. I finally gave in and tried a live rat. He seemed to like that. This week I tried a frozen rat again (warmed with the hairdryer). He seemed to not know it was there, or where it was. Once he bumped his head on it and recoiled. Never struck at it. I gave in again and got him a live rat.

When I put the rat in, he perked up. But he didn't seem to know where the rat was. He actually struck about two inches away from it. Then the rat walked up onto him, and he still didn't seem to know where it was. Finally he struck and got it but he struck its head. When he let go of it after it died, he had a little blood on his face. I think either he squeezed on the rat's teeth or it bit him.

Is it usual for a snake to strike at the wrong spot? I got to wondering if he was blind.

Thanks for any advice.

[mpkeelee]

Usually when this happens its caused by prey not being warm enough. But since u had problems with live this prolly isn't the issue. He may have some neurological issues or his heat pits don't work properly. Is he a morph of some sort? Snakes don't completely rely on vision as much as heat pits

[Emily Hubbard]

Check and see if the snake has a bite anywhere on his face that you can tell, but the blood probably belonged to the rat. Even f/t will bleed if they bite them just right, but a live one can be very juicy.

As far as his striking issues, it could be something serious like blindness, or less serious like retained eye caps, or his food could just not be warm enough, especially with the f/t attempts. The eyes are not the most important tool in feeding, it's the heat pits. If the prey isn't warm enough, that can't "see" them nearly as well.

His misses with the live prey could just be due to the fact that he isn't a ravenous feeder. Nothing wrong with that, some are amazing little hunters and some need a little coaxing. Try out some tricks to get him ready to feed. I only feed f/t, but I thaw the prey in a bowl of warm water on top of the tank. My snake smells it within a few minutes and she will start prowling around looking for it. I will also touch the mouse with my feeding tongs while it's thawing and then put the end of the tongs a few inches from my snake's face about 5 minutes before I offer the food. Her tongue starts going crazy and she gets all riled up and ready for it, which makes it far easier for the both of us.

If the food comes to them as a surprise, it can sometimes take them a while to warm up into predator mode. This can be dangerous with live prey, and annoying with f/t because it will cool off before they go for it and you will need to re-blowdry. So try ways to get your snake to smell food 10-20 minutes before he gets it. Works for me

[Teacher's Pet]

Emily, thanks for the feeding routine. I never thought of that and will definitely try it.

Heat pits. I put an under the tank heat pad on the side of the glass enclosure. The rat was in front of that, so maybe he couldn't identify the heat of the rat vs. the heat of the pad.

mpkeelee, thank you, too! He's just a regular pet shop ball python. I inherited him from a former student when he was 4 months old.

[Emily Hubbard]

Snakes can just be exasperating little beasts sometimes. I think at some point we all just want to scream at them and say, "what do you want!?" We all love them anyway.