Dumb question: How do you keep the food warm?

[marya1962]

Okay, the 4-gal container is set up with hide and water. 90 on hot side and 80 on cool side. Humidity is a bit low, about 60%. We're handling as little as possible. We learn that Hurley probably doesn't like cold food. Fine. I bring the container into the kitchen and thaw the mouse pinky out in hot water. By the time I dangle it in front of him it is cold. I try dipping it back in the hot water. Apparently he doesn't like wet food. So I dry it off by dabbing it on a cloth. By this time it's cold again and I have to start the process over. But the live mouse pinkies seem to scare him. My question is this: how do you present warm food to a ball python? No matter what I do it is cold by the time I present it to him. This is the same one that did not eat for five weeks untill assisted with feeding. We're still trying different things to get him to eat on his own. Also, how often do we feed him? Once a week or every two weeks? Or wait until he poops it out?

[Daybreaker]

I heat my feeders up with a hair dryer (I do F/T too).

I'd try at least a mouse hopper live with him, pinkies are too small.

I feed my smaller guys every 5 days.

[snakesRkewl]

Mouse pinkies are not the best food item for ball pythons, I would up it to fuzzy's or try weanling mice or small mice.

A blow dryer is one way to warm the prey item up after you thaw it out, works like a champ, just don't get the prey too hot.

Also 90 degrees imo is too hot for the ambient temperature, you might lower that 3-4 degrees

[RestlessRobie]

Blow dryer is the key here It performs two tasks heats your f/t to about 100f which seems to be the magic temp for my snakes. Second it does a great job of spreading the rodent smell around and get your snake in a much better mood to eat I use a temp gun to measure the temp of my prey items one of those required items no one seems to ever tell new snake owrners about at the pet store.

[mackynz]

Hairdryer works great, I am confused as to how it cools that much from the time you take it out of the water to the time you offer it...

[Blubb]

As mentioned above, a hair dryer works pretty good. What I do is to put all rats in a plastic bag (those transparent ones), tie a knot on the very top and put it in a bucket of warm water. Leave it in for 5 minutes (if it already has thawed up) and you're good to go. The rats won't get wet because of the plastic bag. I know people who place the rat on a warm heat pad or under a heating lamp with great success. Good luck !

[Punkymom]

I keep mine in plastic bags while they're warming up. Sometimes it will get a hole, but most of the time it doesn't. I usually bring the bowl of warm water and warm rat guts with me to the rack and feed starting with the smallest and ending with the largest. If I need to dry it off, it gets dried right before I offer.

[travis11]

I heat them up under a heat lamp for about an hour, before i feed. Its a great set up. I let them thaw all day, when i get home around 5 i place them under the heat lamp. By 6 they are nice and warm, thats what my balls prefer. They all pop out as soon as they sense that heat coming towards them. I used to use the blow dryer method and it got messy after awhile. Maybe it was me, but the mice tended to explode. Now,i do this and it works very well.

[angllady2]

The hair dryer is the way to go with offering warm, dry food. But unless you are feeding a baby cornsnake, a pinky mouse is MUCH, MUCH too small. My babies get hopper mice straight from the egg, and by the time they have fed 4 or 5 times and are ready to be sold, they are already eating small mice or weanling rats if I have them.

Gale

[marya1962]

Hurley ate! On his own! Petsmart had given us the wrong size food for him! No wonder he wouldn't eat! We got a live hopper and put it in a brown paper bag. The first thing I heard was a strike. I left him for a half hour and sure enough--he'd eaten! I shook the bag out to be sure, I was that amazed. Okay, ordered F/T from LLL Reptile and will try feeding him next week using the hairdryer trick. Things are looking up! Thanks, everybody! Boy, am I so relieved!