Newbie That just needs some advice about how to progress with a stubborn eater

[Bleh]

Bogertophis has has probably covered everything you need to know here, and by far has superior experience to myself but I'll offer up my experiences as a fellow BP amateur.

I've been keeping BP's at a low level for circa. 5 years and have recently been successful with my first clutch (I'm very excited and pleased about this )

With my small collection of BP's, I have experienced feeding concerns at adult stage, 'teenage' stage and more recently, with a snakelet a bit smaller than yours (beautiful animal by the way, love the look on pieds).

Another thing here is I only feed frozen thawed. Live feeding isn't legal here, but I do know it is accessible if the snakes life depends on it. Thankfully, I've never got that far!

So with my two adults, my male is the nightmare eater having gone near 6 months without a feed. This gets extremely worrying, but as long as his weight doesn't drop by 10% or more, and he's not showing any signs illness, I.e. wheezing, salivating, lethargy etc, I change his feeding pattern from fortnightly to monthly. He's also a shy eater, so is best left alone with absolutely no other traffic in the room. Every year I've had a dry spell with him around breeding season but he's always kicked back in.
My female is a beast, eats a size up to the male and would smash one every week if I offered it to her (I do occasionally depending on how active she appears) but is also fed bi-weekly as an adult.

My middle two, a pastel spotnose and blue eyes lucy have both had 'dry' spells.
The spotnose I've had since he was just over 100g and has just recently passed 600g so hoping to pair him this season if he keeps gaining nicely and is offered a feed every week.
The BEL was a bit older when I got her and won't be paired for a few years yet.
But the spotnose just decided he didn't want to eat for a number of weeks, and the BEL was obviously distracted by her new surroundings. After 4 weeks of no weekly takes for both of them, I changed from normal rats to multi rats (rats native to Africa) - this has never failed me and after a few multi feeds, I switch back to normal rats. The multi's always seem to work magically and kick their feeding back in.

With my hatchlings, one of the ten hadn't fed 4 weeks post shed. This was where I had to assist feed. I didn't want to get to this point, but thankfully, as soon as I put the rat fluffs head in the snakelets mouth, pulled it back a bit so it latched, the feeding instinct seemed to kick in and the little beauty coiled and constricted, ate the fluff and has smashed feeds every week since.

With the snakelets, I tend to offer a feed every 5-6 days and intend on bringing the hold back in line with my weekly feeds when he goes a size up soon enough.

Other things I consider during feeding times;

Shed - if they're in shed, they'll likely reject food until they've successfully shed their skin. The snakelets don't necessarily follow this rule though!

Handling - I never handle on feeding days.

Feeding time - evenings seem best, as the light diminishes. Again, snakelets don't seem to be bothered with me but the older BP's are always more keen as this is more in line with their natural behaviour and feeding instinct.

Privacy - once they're constricting, leave them have some privacy to enjoy their meals. Spectators may put them off eating and they'll easily get distracted and leave their food.

What I hope to have done here is offer scenarios that work for me and may offer you considerations in finding an outcome that works best for you.

And again, there's already great advice being offered in your thread from some very experienced keepers some of which I have seen comment on many posts and have learned from and continue to learn from.

The key thing I think I've learned over the past few years of keeping BP's is there's no exact science and you'll need to establish what works for the individual and be willing to adapt to suit their needs.

Good luck.