bp eating inconsistently

[arachnidsgrip]

hello! i have had my 2 year old ball python for about a year now and she's been inconsistently eating lately. her temps tend to be 67-69 on the cool side, and 76-79 on the warm side. she's on frozen small rats (she was about 840g last time i weighed her). sometimes she'll take the rat and sometimes she won't, i offer her every week. i used to handle her pretty consistently (2 or 3 times a week) but i havent handled her in quite a while because i remember reading on this forum that it is best to wait until they take 3 consistent meals before handling, and at most she's managed two meals in a row before rejecting the 3rd...

just now, i tried feeding her and i was really optimistic she would take it because she was active and showed interest at me opening her tank, but when i dangled the ratty, she literally turned away her head! she sometimes came up and sniffed it but just seemed bored, even when i made it dance. for now, i've left the rat in her tank and turned off the lights in the room in hope she'll take it. i'm just wondering if i'm doing something wrong? like do i need to raise her temps or just offer her less...?

[Bogertophis]

She's WAY too cold! The cool side should be no less than 75*, the warm side should be up to a max of 89*-90*- with a good portion of the middle of her home being about 85*.

She needs a bowl of fresh water at all times- doesn't have to be large, but she also needs humidity of about 55% when not in shed, & up to 70-75% when IN shed. She needs a minimum of 2 equal hides, one on the cool side & one on the warm side, so that she's never forced to choose between a sense of security & the right temperature for digestion- because with only one hide, most snakes will choose to hide, even at the wrong temperature.

PLEASE fix her temperatures as soon as possible- and also for safety, all heat sources must be regulated- preferably by a thermostat. Humidity can either be raised by using a substrate that holds moisture well, OR by furnishing a "humid hide". Please ask if you don't understand anything I've said here, or have further questions. Don't bother offering food until she's warm enough to digest it.

[EL-Ziggy]

I agree that your temps are well below what they should be. I’d recommend a 75/88 temp gradient also.

[nikkubus]

When reptiles are kept at suboptimal temps below what they should be, their metabolism slows way down. It takes longer to digest food, longer to burn calories. One of the reasons it's so bad to let them get that cold, is having food in the digestive tract for a lot longer than it should be greatly increases risks of bacterial imbalances and regurgitation.

Get those temps fixed ASAP, and I would stop feeding all together until they are correct. If you are short on cash, you can pick up an inkbird thermostat for $20-30 and a reptile under tank heat mat should be even less than that.

When temps are correct, she should be able to resume eating normally in a couple weeks, but if she refuses, hold off trying again for another 2 weeks. She may have a lot of digestive issues going on from being too cold for a while that need to readjust. I would also bring her down to pups for the first couple meals she actually takes, to really give her digestive system some time to kick back into gear. I can't tell without seeing at list a pic of her, but 840g at 2 years old, she is unlikely to be anywhere close to emaciated and in desperate need of a meal.

[arachnidsgrip]

thanks everyone for your advice! i bumped up the heat on the hot side to be comfortably in the 80s. her cool side was still in the 60's, so i went out and got a second lamp + installed a 60 watt ceramic heat bulb. i have her in a glass tank so i have it insulated with some craft foam and cardboard, which is meant to be a short term solution--what do you guys do to keep your tanks insulated?


bogertophis, she has 3 bowls of water and 3 suitable hides, all spread out through her enclosure. her humidity is usually around 40%-70%, i put wet towels on top of her tank and change them out as they dry out (usually every 2 or 3 days). i'll keep a closer eye on her humidity though to make sure it stays above 50%.

el-ziggy, thank you! i'll keep that gradient in mind.

nikkubus, thank you for the thermostat recommendation! i already have two regulating her UTH and her hot side lamp, and if her cool side gets too hot, i'll get one for that side as well. i have some extra small mice on hand, should i try offering those to her or stick to rat pups?
here is a recent picture of her for reference:

[Bogertophis]

Don't offer any food for a while- not until she's been consistently warmed up to the right temperatures (as given above) for at least 2 weeks. Any sooner is likely to fail anyway. When it's time to offer food again, offer what she has been consistently eating previously- it's not a good time to take a chance that she'll refuse to eat- and if she does refuse, you won't know for sure if it's because the FOOD is different, or because she's still not comfortable, or because she may even be ill. So try not to confuse things with different prey.

Your second heat lamp for the "cool side" should AT LEAST be regulated by a lamp dimmer (aka rheostat)- easily available from most any hardware store & not expensive. Thermostats are better but cost more- however, safety should be your primary concern- a snake that gets too hot can be injured or killed, & since they're stuck in captivity, it's only fair to put their safety & welfare first.

Insulating a glass tank is easy & you can use many things, from sheets of styro-foam, cork tiles or sheet cork, or thick (corrugated) cardboard, or foam-centered poster boards (these are the easiest to cut neatly), or even the "bubble-wrap" some use to insulate hot water heaters. Cover the back & sides, & underneath except where the UTH is- that MUST breathe a little for safety so it doesn't over-heat & short out.

If you don't want to see the "insulation", install scenery first, then the insulation behind it.

Most ppl seem to find that the damp towels on top don't add effectively to the humidity- & remember that heat rises, so most of that moisture is going into YOUR room, not the snake's.

What works instead is to reduce the air-flow that's carrying away the moisture in the air- you want to cover most of the top with something that air cannot pass thru- again, many things can be used, from foil to glass or to plastic- anything air doesn't flow thru. Obviously you need to leave safe spaces around the overhead warming-bulb fixtures, but with minimal air flow, the humidity you provide inside the tank will mostly remain there.

The reason that PVC enclosures "retain humidity better" is because the ventilation is very minimal- so that's what you want to duplicate here- it's no real mystery. Neither glass nor plastic allows humidity to "escape"- it's all about the openings, & glass tanks usually have a whole top that's open-air, compared to a few tiny holes & minute gaps around the door of a PVC enclosure.
See?

[arachnidsgrip]

update: i've fixed her temps (77 on cool side, 86 on the warm side). i waited 2 weeks to offer again today. she still rejected it! i used the same method i had been previously when she was eating consistently, so i'm not sure i'm doing anything wrong on that end.

i dropped the rat in her tank and left the room (turned off the lights, kept door closed) and she didn't touch it. i WAS going to put her in a paper bag (with holes cut in it for breathing) with the re-heated rat but as i entered the room i smelt burning plastic... because i had left her heating lamp on the carpet and it had melted the carpet!! i quickly evacuated miss pemdas (that's her name) out of her tank bc the plastic smell is so strong and now she's in a cardboard box on my lap as i type this. im very lucky and very stupid, i know.

anyways, that's how my night has been. just one L after the other!

[Malum Argenteum]

"what do you guys do to keep your tanks insulated?"

I use PVC reptile enclosures and plastic tubs. While as mentioned both glass and plastic retain humidity the same, and it is simply the design of a fish tank that makes them unsuitable in this regard, plastic holds heat better than glass regardless of design (and so a plastic enclosure is more suitable than an ExoTerra even with the ventilation situation of the ExoTerra addressed). This is not to discount the foam insulation recommendations, especially as a short term fix (BPs are 40+ year animals, and I wouldn't want to deal with a rigged up enclosure for too long, but to each her own).

I use radiant heat panels and/or heat tape (aka heat mats) for heat. Heat lamps are good for basking animals, not so much for nocturnal animals. The few heat lamps I use are permanently affixed to an overhead mount and are not movable for safety.

Also, a decent reptile thermostat gives some safety. If your heat lamp was thermostatically controlled by a unit like a Herpstat, the thermo would have shut off the lamp when the probe temp dropped while the lamp was being powered -- a high quality thermostat can tell when some things are amiss, and do something about it. It sounds like you need three channels, so a Herpstat 4 would be a wise investment. Alternately, a PVC enclosure with an RHP or a tub setup with heat tape would only need one channel.

[Bogertophis]

update: i've fixed her temps (77 on cool side, 86 on the warm side). i waited 2 weeks to offer again today. she still rejected it! i used the same method i had been previously when she was eating consistently, so i'm not sure i'm doing anything wrong on that end.

i dropped the rat in her tank and left the room (turned off the lights, kept door closed) and she didn't touch it. i WAS going to put her in a paper bag (with holes cut in it for breathing) with the re-heated rat but as i entered the room i smelt burning plastic... because i had left her heating lamp on the carpet and it had melted the carpet!! i quickly evacuated miss pemdas (that's her name) out of her tank bc the plastic smell is so strong and now she's in a cardboard box on my lap as i type this. im very lucky and very stupid, i know.

anyways, that's how my night has been. just one L after the other!

Very lucky, yes, & that "smell" is very toxic to both you and your pets, so on the quick evacuation. Now to air it all out. Open the window & run a fan.

Good job on raising the temps (77* - 86*) but I'm not surprised that she's not yet convinced that eating is safe. Weather often fluctuates, & snakes don't fall for the first little warm-up- it can take quite a while before they feel the temperatures can now be relied on enough for them to eat. That's why it's imperative that we don't let them get chilled in the first place- "winter" means no eating for a while!

I know that the 'paper bag trick' works for some snakes, but I wouldn't recommend it for this snake- the handling required may backfire, & it's most likely that 2 weeks just wasn't enough time. I would suggest just being patient- keep the temperatures up there- & don't offer again for another 2 weeks, and then, make sure you "do everything right".