Mystery solved

[hhw]

I finally have every single one of my ball pythons feeding requirements figured out.

For some of them, all I have to do is drop or wave something in front of them and they will take them. 7/11 of my ball pythons fall into this category. You've got to love those ones.

Then, there's those that insist on being all sneaky with their prey, even when it's dead. You need to somehow convince it the prey is looking the other way so they can grab it from behind. I've been struggling to get them to take frozen/thawed still, but I can still further refine the art of the rodent dance.

My pastel male has been a bit of trouble on the other hand... when I acquired him, I was told he would eat nothing but live mice. However, I have had trouble getting him to even eat them. Before tonight, I have only been able to get him to eat once, while I wasn't in the room. Although I'm not as worried as some other may be about feeding live mice unattended, it's definitely not a preferable situation. So, I wanted to find a key to get him to eat while I was still watching. Turns out he just likes to feed from well INSIDE his hide (with the prey kind of trapped in a corner), while it is ABSOLUTELY dark. He threw me off before as he has at times ignored mice who went right into his hide, but I guess having it pitch black in the room and having it cornered was necessary as well. This will be very difficult to reproduce with frozen/thawed, but perhaps he'll be a little less picky once he's had a few more meals.

Anyway, I can now get every one of my ball pythons to eat whenever I offer them food, which is good since my Sav is still too small to take leftovers and I hate to waste good meat. Just wanted to share, thanks for reading.

[Cody]

Haha, bp's can be characters, huh? Congrats on the solved mystery, Sherlock.

[led4urhead]

Andy is just like that. He wont eat unless all the lights are out and he thinks no one is watching. I've gotten the habit of covering his tank with a dark towel and that seems to work.

[Tigergenesis]

Little buggers aren't they? I think the key is just figuring out what works for each one - whethering it's how to get them to eat period or how to get them to eat f/t.

I think they like to make us work for their 'affection'.