Feeding my ball

[daver676]

Hello All!

I hope to feed my new ball for the first time this weekend. I plan on feeding her in a separate container. My question is what should be in the separate container besides my snake and her food? Should I put the heat lamp over the container with some substrate? Do I need the lid on once the mouse is in? The food is pre-killed. And yes, I will feed with tongs.

Thanks

Dave

[BoidKeeper]

Why a separate container? The sooner you start a ball on Rats the better. You don't want to some day be feeding a bunch of mice to an adult Ball Python.
Cheers,
Trevor

[daver676]

I want to feed in a separate container so the snake doesn't start associating my hand with food whenever I reach in the tank. As far as feeding rats, i'll have to check with the reptile place to see if they sell them.

Thanks for the reply.

Dave

[Linds]

As for your snake associating you hand with food I believe this is jsut mroe of a train of thought people have than an actual truth. I used to at one time feed with a feeding container, but as my collection grew this became very inefficient and time consuming. Between work and my own observations at home, I have noticed absolutely no differences in behaviour from feeding in their enclosure. Agressive snakes have been tamed down fine, passive snakes have remained that way, nobody has become increasingly agressive. My conclusion is that it just creates more uneeded stress. As for putting substrate in a feeding box it is not necessary, and if you mean loose substrate, then that is highly inadvisable. Often people will utilize feeding boxes becasue the snake has loose substrate in its home, and feeding on it can result in an impaction. As long as your house isn't freezing, then all you need is a rubbermaid with a lid (unless you want to sit there and watch your snake and wait for him to finish).