Quote Originally Posted by Coluber42 View Post
First of all, that little snake is lucky to have landed with you, particularly coming from a breeder who was either blind and clueless or unscrupulous.

But what recourse you have with regard to the breeder is neither here nor there when it comes to getting the snake to eat for you and taking the best possible care of it. There are lots of resources here for getting youngsters to eat. But what a lot of it comes down to is that they are most vulnerable while they're eating, so they don't want to be watched, they don't want to feel exposed, they want an escape route (like being able to drag the prey into a hide and finish it out of sight) and they don't want to do it in bright light. If swallowing is just a little more difficult than normal, that probably contributes to the insecurity.
So scent the room, but keep commotion to a minimum, feed at night, keep the lights turned low, and if possible, use a cardboard shield or something so the snake can't see you watching. Also make sure the prey is heated up to body temperature (100 degrees give or take) and wiggle it a little.

I don't have personal experience with this, but you might seek out other keepers who have cared for snakes with this deformity over the long term. Since its mouth can't really close completely normally, I could imagine the snake being potentially more prone to issues or irritation from some kinds of substrate, low humidity, etc. Can snakes get dry mouth, if the skin on the inside of their mouth that would normally be moist from saliva basically at all times gets dry from being exposed? Could it be more prone to mouth rot, fungus, abrasions, bits of substrate getting stuck where it can't get rid of them? I have no idea, but I'm sure there's someone out there who could either tell you what small tweaks to its care might help accommodate its issue, or even just assure you that it doesn't need anything any different from a normal ball python.
Great post !!!

This is one snake that hopefully won't be fed LIVE food ...


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