Baby Bp not Feeding

[Grimmie]

Hi,
I bought i baby BP about a month ago from my local reptile store. The owner told me to feed it fuzzys. To be left to defrost and then heated with a hairdryer. Well one month down the line and 4 attempts shes less than interested in these mice. I've tried splitting the brains out, putting her in a little tub with it and to no luck. However i've just read that i should prehaps be feeding her small live mice at first??
Should i try and get her a live mouse?
Shes nearly 1 and a half months old now and still hasn't eattern, i'm getting abit worried.
Could people tell me what they would do in my position.
BTW My temps, viv set-up etc is exactly what everyone uses on this site.
Cheers
Graham

[elevatethis]

If all your husbandry is right, as you indicated, you may have a snake that just doesn't want to eat f/t. It happens, and isn't a big deal. Offer a live fuzzy or hopper size mouse and see what happens. Once you get it eating on a consistant basis, you can try and wean it back to f/t should you choose to do so.

[frankykeno]

My understanding that you being in the UK makes feeding live a hot button topic over there. I read this link recently and it seems your laws both state that feeding "unnaturally" i.e. could be seen as unnatural to feed "dead" prey is wrong but in the same section that feeding live is also wrong. What a muck up!

http://www.publications.parliament.u...52/4090724.htm

Did this store sell you a BP so young it hadn't even taken it's first feedings yet or was it eating for them but hasn't eaten for you yet?

Here's a wonderful link that should give you some ideas and guidelines. Adam is a well respected member of BPNet and an experienced breeder of BP's. I know others have tried some of his ideas from this link and found great success in getting stubborn babies started.

http://www.8ballpythons.com/journal/...ingseating.htm

[Grimmie]

The snake was about 2 weeks old when i bought it and it hadn't been fed at all due to the fact it was shipped in from ghana.

I went into the shop i bought it from today to enquire about finding a live mouse and the response i got was 'No i wouldn't feed a ball python live, it could damage your snake. It would be much better to force feed it.' At which point i simply left. Far as iam concerned force feeding is still a month at least away. And yeah in the UK it seems its 'wrong' to feed live prey to your snake, for some stupid reason.

I also rang around 5 pet stores in my area and none seem to sell mice *sigh*, i'm starting to feel at a loss.

I've read that document by adam before and he uses live which don't seem to exsist in newcastle (despite it being a big city).

Hopefully she eats tomorrow!

[joepythons]

I think i can point out the possible problems.First your pet store owners are money hungry pigs for letting that snake go before it even started to eat on its own .Second it being a captive hatch from ghana that was sold to you very stressed out.Third force feeding should be the very last attempt you should even try to do.Fourth the pet shop people telling you to force feed it shows they are idiots.What size enclosure do you have it in? Give it a couple days to a week then try again feeding it.Keep us posted

[Grimmie]

My viv is approx 30inches long, 15 wide and 10 high. 2 hides 1 at the cool end 1 at the warm. Warm hovers around 92, cool around 80.


Tried feeding her a hopper mouse last night, it perked her up when she saw it then she just ignored it so i put her in a little tub with it overnight..... no luck .

Shes noticeably thin towards her tail now, although the center of her body doesn't feel hugely thin, although its certainly no where near fat.

Shes a month and a half old now, how long can she survive without food?

And i rang 25 pet sotres yesterday and none will sell me live mice for food. And until i move into my new flat (about a month away) i can't set up my own breeding pair.

Anyone got any tips/tricks/advice on how to get some food down her?
Thanks

[frankykeno]

How about you buy a "pet" mouse. You may have to buy your "pets" from different pet shops so they don't figure out these mice really aren't for keeps but we do what we have to do. At least if you could get a few meals into her then you could at some later point move her to f/t. You might want to consider getting a fecal done on this little ghana baby too just to rule out parasites.

[FPaul702]

Brown Bag.... Baby BP's need the shelter to feel safe. So my suggestion is to get a live fuzzy, ask the pet shop to put it in a bigger brown bag, once you get it home toss you snake in there with him, close the bag, poke tiny airholes in it, put it back in his tank and just wait a little bit. Within the next couple of hours you should hear the sweet sound of of being squeezed to death. Wait another hour or so and take your BP out and put him back in his house to leave him alone for a couple days after.

[Grimmie]

I went to the shop today and bought a mouse, unfourtunatly it seems in england you have to have a special lisence or sumsuch to sell live mammalian food items and i can't find anywhere that sells them. I spent 15mins convincing the owner i was having them for pets not for food. (apprantly i don't look like the mouse type.) The mice are probably just a bit bigger than the widest part of my BP, which i know isn't desirable but its the best i can do. None of the 25 pet stores i rang have baby mice/able to get baby mice.

So just some questions.
How should i introduce the mouse to the snake?
How long should i give the snake to strike? (obv if the mouse looks like it might attack the snake its outta there.)
And i think one of the two may be pregant, she looks very plump around the belly compared with the other one, despite the fact there the same age. How long is mouse pregnancy?
Please give me any other advice about live feeding.
Thanks

[frankykeno]

Absolutely silly that you have to go through that just to get your poor snake a decent meal isn't it! If you think the one is pregnant, check out our Feeder threads....there's an FAQ and tons of good info there about mouse reproduction. You might want to keep her if she's preggie and get some future feeders out of her even if after she's weaned them you then feed the female off.

Regardless of what you do, I'd suggest feeding and watering feeder prey from a pet store prior to feeding them off. You don't want your snake faced with a half crazed, hungry, thirsty prey item and most rats/mice tend to come out of pretty overcrowded tanks in pet stores. Make sure your snake is alert and aware, evening feeds when a nocturnal snake is naturally awake are in my opinion the best time to feed live prey. Do put the prey on the opposite side of the enclosure, not dropped right in the snake's face. Keep a watchful eye but don't hover over as they may put your snake right off it's hunting instinct and more into triggering it's "ack the big human is gonna eat ME" instinct. Of course you only put in one live prey at a time.

Have a good look through our husbandry section and you should find tons of threads on safe methods for live feeding (the search function is wonderful here).