1.0 ball about 3 years old. hasn't eaten in over a month even when offered food. seems to be losing weight, and he hasn't shed since december. is something wrong with him, or is this typical fasting behavior?
if he is losing weight you may want to take him to a vet but if he wasnt losing weight BP's are known to fast threw the winter through late spring..
i don't know for sure if he's lost weight, haven't weighed him in a while. but he appears to have, and he's been extremely active as of late. moves all around the cage day and night, which makes me think he's hungry but yet when i try to feed him he won't eat.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Ball Pythons! Are you offering frozen/thawed, pre-killed, or live? BPs are known for being picky eaters and also going off food for extended periods for no apparent reason. For your piece of mind you might want to get the snake checked at the vet to be sure it is healthy. Otherwise just keep offering food and it will eventually start eating again.
well, i figured i'd try something new, as it had been 30 days since he'd eaten. i got out his old tank and put him in there, then i dropped one mouse. in less than 10 seconds, he nailed it and devoured it. i then dropped into another mouse, and he ate it in about the same time. i repeated the process today and had the saem results. i guess for some reason he got scared of the rats i was feeding previously. but he's eating again and i'm happy. i'll just feed him mice from now on.
try a variety of foods. I had the same problem with one of my ball pythons. He wouldn't eat mice for nothing. He was almost dead when he finally ate. we thought we had tried everything being very stupid.... well we finally tried something else. Rats. He ate 6 baby rats and 2 mice that day. Now he eats anywhere from 2-5 rats every Sunday.
I have been dealing with balls for quite some time now. I with experience have found that balls and or red tails will eat when they are ready to. Yes both species are quite picky at times. But as far as diameter it really don't hold much water. We have a rainbow boa not much bigger around than a persons pinky, and after not eating for three months ate a full grown mouse. Remember we tried pinky rats, pinky mice, fussies, and hoppers. So the size is no issue here at all. I am jamie's mom. So I have coached her with her snakes. And pround to say we have done a wonderful job, from pulling one of her balls out of certain death, and he is now doing remarkable. My snakes are redtails-mini( 5'5) freeza(6'8) wicked(6'9) baby(8'0) ambrsia(8'0) zion(2'0) trinity(1'8) rainbow-shenron (1'8) balls-slithers(4'3) sipher(20')
Jamie... the reason I asked about the prey size is because of the quantity of food items that you are offering at a feeding. A snakes digestive system is not "designed" to handle so many food items in one shot. Two items, maybe three, but 5 items is way too much! Given there are exceptions to every rule, but the ideal rule is one prey item equal in girth to the thickest part of the snake once a week. My snakes: 1.2 Hog Island Boa, 1.1 Colombian Boa, 1.2 Amazon Tree Boa, 1.0 Irian Jaya Carpet Python, 0.2 Dumerils Boa, 1.0 Ball Python
what stormyva is trying to say is this: snakes offered 5 items in one day or scheduled feeding time will not do well with that. There bodies are only designed to handle a few, like s' said. If they had 5 in the body, they all wouldnt get fully digested, since the 5 rats make a long line of items in the snakes body, therefore speeding up the waste process. In this way snakes do not feed and absorb as well... With my red tail and my ball python, at most ill give my BP 2 full grown mice, but thats it. Same with my red tail... But what i recomend is that you give the snake either 2 semi-large items, that are not extremely big, or i recomend one big rat pup. Ive fed my BP rat pups for 80% of his feeds and hes grown like a weed.
the one that ate all those rats and mice. was my rescue mission. I got him while my ex and i were together. we split up and he took both of my snakes. I got him back 3 months later and he was almost dead. you could see his ribs and everything. so i went and got feed with my mom. he was only supposed to eat 4 of them but Shenron didn't eat so he ate shennys 2. the next day he ate 2 regular size mice. He was 21 inches long when we got him back now he is2ft.1in. in the matter of a month and a half. he doesn't eat near as much as he did at first he is starting to get his mass and girth back to the way it was. Last week all he ate was 2 mice and he is fine (still pissy, but fine)
