Hard time switching to frozen, strange day time behavior

[Sgt7212]

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I really do appreciate it even though it's not the nicest, but that's the only real way for me to learn right now. I now know how improperly I am doing a lot of important stuff in my husbandry. I will do as people told me(have minimum contact with the snake for a week, and then try and feed it). But, my original thread and some posts had some questions that I didn't get an answer for. One of the questions I asked was "Where I could get one or a few live hoppers?". I do have a pet shop not too far away that I know sells live mice, but I don't know if they will sell me just one. Let's say they did sell me one hopper on the day I would try to feed my snake(After a full week of basically bare minimum human contact) and he wouldn't eat the hopper. Where would I keep it? Would I have to get a cage for mice and make them live and grow with me for another whole week? I also asked what the strange day time behavior could mean. Someone also told me that I did need a second hide after I stated that I will be getting another one soon, which made me think that my thread wasn't read completely through(No hard feelings at all, just made me feel a little bit frustrated). I hope this doesn't make me sound like an ungrateful person. Thank you all for your feedback, No hard feelings.

Dont get frustrated. Everyone starts somewhere. The important thing is that you are receptive to the advice.

I am not an expert, but reading through and interpreting others’ responses and also thinking through how I would attempt to resolve the issues you are facing right now, these are my thoughts.

As to your question regarding him roaming and exploring after having him out and handling him for about 20 minutes, your question was indirectly, although not explicitly answered. If a ball python is stressed and scared, it will not behave the way it would when it is not stressed or afraid. When you put him back into his enclosure, which is a space that he has not had time to sufficiently adjust to in the first place due to over handling and repeated efforts to feed him when he wasn’t ready, what you interpreted to be exploring, may have actually been him searching for a place in the enclosure that he felt safe and secure in.That’s why people have recommended to leave him be, no handling, etc... Let him have the time to settle and de-stress.

As for the live hopper, once you get him eating regularly, it won’t be a concern. In the meantime, my personal opinion is that a live hopper mouse does not present a danger to your snake. I would NOT recommend this with a larger mouse or rat, but you could put the hopper mouse in and leave in in the enclosure. My guess is that at some point overnight, when things are quiet and dark, he will eat it and it will be gone by morning. Worst case scenario, a hopper mouse is not very expensive, so if it goes to waste and you buy one the following week, I don’t think it’s that big of a loss. Maybe $2? You’ll be spending that anyway once he is eating regularly. Once you get him eating on a consistent basis (at least 3 weeks in a row), you could switch him over to f/t.

Someone with more more experience can jump in here if I am off base on any of this.