Losing interest in food

[smellati]

I have a 29" bp, who seems to be losing interest in food. Lately, he has been very picky of how he strikes his food. If the right situation in the right place, doesn't occur, he loses interest, and tries to get out of his feeding box. Could this be signs of fasting? And while I'm on the subject, at what size do fasting occur, and does it occur more than once? I fed him today, which was the 8th day after his his previous feeding. It took me 2 tries before before he actually when for it.

[tigerlily]

Just curious what you're feeding him? Are temps 82 coolside and 92 hotside? Any other changes?

[Adam_Wysocki]

I have a 29" bp, who seems to be losing interest in food. Lately, he has been very picky of how he strikes his food. If the right situation in the right place, doesn't occur, he loses interest, and tries to get out of his feeding box. Could this be signs of fasting? And while I'm on the subject, at what size do fasting occur, and does it occur more than once? I fed him today, which was the 8th day after his his previous feeding. It took me 2 tries before before he actually when for it.

Fasting isn't automatic with ball pythons, it's usually a result of a husbandry issue. What are your temps, humidity, and feeding schedule? I'd bet prey size has a lot to do with what you're seeing.

Just my opinion.

-adam

[smellati]

Temps are 90 hot, 80 cool, and the humidity is 60-70. He's very active and warm, when I feed him. Sometimes I even put a heat lamp for him in the feeding box. I have fed 2 mice, and I have fed one appropriate size rat. Both with the same result. He gets interested, but he insist on striking at the head, which is ok, but he hesitates when the opportunity comes. I'm thinking that maybe his feeding box is too big, but I fear that a smaller one will just stress him out. It used to be, where I put in the mouse, about 3 seconds later, he would strike. Now it takes closer to 20 minutes for him to finallly strike. He doesn't really seem afraid of his prey. His attitude is more like "whatever" towards it. Sometimes I think that he is just not that hungry. I will admit that his last prey was probably the biggest he's gotten, but this doesn't seem to be the problem.

[Adam_Wysocki]

I will admit that his last prey was probably the biggest he's gotten, but this doesn't seem to be the problem.

So the last time your snake ate it was the biggest item he had ever eaten and since then he seems not hungry but prey size doesn't seem to be the problem?

Ball pythons are notorious "binge" feeders. They have the ability to take in large amounts of food and then not eat while their body and metabolism catch up. It's an advantage that evolution has given them to survive the cooler dryer winters of West Africa when food is scarcer.

Sounds to me like your snake is suffering from too much food in too short of a time.

I prefer to feed much smaller meal than most people would suggest and my snakes eat every single week.

That's just my $.02 ... good luck with whatever you figure out!

-adam

[smellati]

Maybe your right, although he hasn't fed in 8 days, pooped and looked slender. But maybe he wasen't that hungry. I hope I'm not over feeding him.

[frankykeno]

I'm just wondering if feeding prey that is a bit too big for the snake might actually dull it's predator/prey responses. Just thinking it through in my mind, if an animal is given overly large prey it would need longer to digest anyways and then might react slower to more prey as it's instinct is there's big prey around, why react by aggressively feeding. If it's used to smaller prey, I would think (in my limited knowledge on this topic) that an animal would be more alert and prey driven to get what it needs weekly from this smaller prey source. Also, animals that tend to be overfed (any animal really) seems to eventually get lazy and picky about it's food.


~~Joanna~~