You could certainly clutter it up more to help her feel more secure, but it's not necessary to buy additional accessories like plants or rocks to do so quite yet. In my experience, layers of paper, such as kraft or newspaper, make a good substrate in this sort of situation, as you can easily fold and arrange multiple layers for your snake to hide under. Sitting between/beneath layers of paper mimics their natural behavior of hiding beneath leaf litter.
As an alternative, you could also use a particulate substrate such as the prococo chip-and-fiber mix, or even long-fiber sphagnum moss (Chilean or New Zealand are popular and easy to find on Amazon). By doing so, you could provide a thick layer of substrate for your snake to burrow into that will also double as a hide, and allow your python to feel secure regardless of where it is in the enclosure. If you do so, keep in mind you'll want to have extra on hand to replace when it becomes soiled to avoid ammonia buildup in the enclosure. As I'm sure you're aware, these snakes can pee a LOT!
At this point I would advise against feeding outside of the cage. It really isn't a necessary practice, and can stress the animal by all the additional activity of moving to and from a separate tub/location. I'd make a few tweaks to your enclosure as described above, let the snake settle in for another week or so, and then offer prey at night after the lights go out.
Have you been offering live, pre-killed or F/T?
Originally Posted by MD_Pythons
A little update. I moved her into the 15qt Monday. She hasn't eaten in a while so I thought the more stable environment of the tub might help. She still hasn't taken food and I think it could be a couple things. Maybe there's too much open space in it? I could buy some fake plants and get some rocks to clutter it up. Or maybe I just need to leave her in longer, she's been out and moving around so I didn't think that was an issue. She's eaten for me before in the tank so may be i could move to feed her? I don't like doing that but it might do something. I've tried live and f/t and she's shown no interest. So help would be appreciated, thanks.
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