How do you feed your ball?

[Vengeance]

Just curious what methods people use to feed their ball. I've found a funny little quirt with mine during feeding time. I use a pair of thorsepcs and hold the rat (currently pinky rat) by one of the hind legs and dangle it in front of him. He almost allways strikes when I put it in front of him. But the funny thing is when he does he usually hits it so hard that it gets sent flying half way across the cage cause the leg tears off. Thing is I know he is hungry because he is hitting it, he will allways hit it 2 - 3 times but anything after that he won't bother anymore. If he can't coil it after the third hit because it goes flying then he wants nothing to do with it. So what methods do you guys use for feeding. I was thinking about laying it on a flat plastic container with no edges and placeing it in his cage see if he'd go for it that way, any other suggestions?

[marisa]

HA! Your lucky he tries three times. With my female BP if she misses even ONCE that's it, any chance of her eating that night is over. It's like she gets embarassed about the miss and must hide in her shame. HAHAHA

I have recently started just laying the prey item in the cage for the most part. It took a couple weeks but she eats it by morning now.

Marisa

[Bartman]

For now i just hold it at the base of the tail and leave it near the face. He gets really into it when i wiggle it, then stop, the wiggle, the stop. He'll also strike when i all of a sudden, drop it on the floor. Dont know why but its good :)

[fateamber]

So far, for both my bps I just leave the mouse/ rat in their cage over night for them to eat, my male bp stopped striking at food a few months ago.

[BurmBaroness]

I have a male that's about 5 mos old. He has never struck at food, and refuses to eat in a tote. I keep him on aspen, so when it's time to feed, I just put an appropriate size peice of newspaper under his hide box, lay the rat on it, and put the box back on top. He will eat it sometime in the next 12 hours or so. I think he likes it stinky............lol.

[mykee]

Regardless of what size your ball is, a rat pinkie is way too small of a food item. Try a larger item. I use hemostats and a wiggle dance.

[Linds]

I just use tongs (lol... good ol' bbq tongs :p), except for my little live feeder... she just gets everything taken out of her cage and the rat dropped in and monitored closely.

Originally posted by mykee
Regardless of what size your ball is, a rat pinkie is way too small of a food item.

Rat pinkies are a fine size for most hatchling balls to start out on.

[mykee]

Linds, I agree if you're going to feed your ball 5 or 6 of them per meal. Otherwise, a 5-7 gram pinkie, in my opinion, is much too small a meal if you're only going to feed one, as one would with a larger item.

[Invictus]

In my opinion, pinkie anything should never be offered to a BP. Theys hould be started on 15-20g adult mice, not 5-7 gram pinkies. Besides which, pinkies are all fat, no muscle. Might as well use mice until it's big enough to take weaned rats, which shouldn't be too long into its life.

[Linds]

I'm not talking about day old pinks. Rat pinks can range up to the size of large hopper mice. These will easily give a good sized bulge in a hatchling ball.

[Tigergenesis]

I use tongs, wiggle it until I've got my BP's attention and then drop it. When it hits the ground my BP strikes. He's only struck at it while I still had it in the tongs once.

[Vengeance]

Well here is a pic of the size of pinky rats im feeding. I'll pick up some fuzzies next time but if you guys think that this is way to small I'll pick some up before his next feeding.

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/3606DSCF0031-med.JPG

[Linds]

Well, I don't know how big your snake is so I cannot tell you what size you should be feeding, but that looks like a day old pink from what I can see which is likely too small for the little guy. Good for a hatchling corn, not a hatchling ball :p

[Vengeance]

Yea I forgot to add that part, he is about 6 - 8 months old, so that's way to small. Ok no big deal I'll pick some fuzzies up tommorow, he just took the pinky rat right now, I used Tigers method, got his attention and then droped it, he did the rest. I'll grab a pic of his size in a couple days.

[marisa]

WOW. No offfense but I am so glad you are moving up. A 7 month or so ball python can take MUCH larger than even fuzzies normally. Much larger. Mine was eating 3 adult mice or more at that time.

Marisa

[Vengeance]

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/3606Fredeatin-med.jpg

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/3606fredeating-med.JPG

Here he is eating, I'll pick up the fuzzies tommorow. I'd perfer to keep him on rats cause every thing I've heard is that they are better in the long run as a source of food. Since he is already taking rats every 5 days, no reason to switch im to mice.

[Linds]

I would definitely move that little guy up to large rat pups ;)

[MouseKilla]

My 8 month old male is eating rats about 60g or so every 7 days lately. I started him out on 20 - 30g rats when I got him as a 5 month old. I don't bother with the pinkie/hopper/weanling stuff, I can never remember which is which, I just go by weight. That may be a good reference, food to body weight ratio. I never really thought about it before but it seems I'm feeding him about 20% of his body weight once a week, since he's now roughly 300g. Not sure if this is more or less food than the experts but my guy seems to be putting on weight and growing well...

[Vengeance]

I weighed him the other day he was 205 Grams, that underweight? I've had him about 3 weeks and he has fed 3 times and shed once.

[jathoma]

My 6 month old ball is eating 65-70g rats every week....he's about 31" long and I don't have a scale so I can't tell you his weight, but he is thick, that's for sure....

I switched him from adult mice to small rats about 2 months ago and he's never looked back (or refused a meal, no matter how large).

Anyway...I also use tongs and do the dead rat boogie in front of him.
Only once did he not strike and that time I put the rat outside his hide, only to see it slowly dragged inside about a half hour later (it was like a slasher movie where the body disappears off screen by an unseen killer!)

Good luck to all when it comes to just keeping your ball fed!

[elevation24]

I agree that he can almost certainly take something larger. My youngest that are on rats are both 4/5 months old and they are on weaned rats ranging from 40 to 50 grams a piece. He should be able to take a large pup fairly easily.

As far as feeding, my snakes all differ. One of the ones mentioned above will eat if I just drop it in her enclosure and leave her alone - the other won't, I have to dangle it in front of him or his hide. He is usually much more quick to strike if he is still in his hide when I introduce the food item, and even refuses sometimes when he is not in there. My other ball pythons differ as well, but for the most part dangling with tongs in front of the hide is what does the trick.

[mykee]

Wow! My two-month old hatchlings were 200 grams. I've got a few 6 month old balls and they range in weight from 470-735g, the largest of which are eating rats in the 100-140g size.

[Tigergenesis]

MousKilla got me thinking. How do you guys determine what size to feed your BPs? Do you go by percentage of body weight, do you go by the 'as big as the thickest part of the snakes body' rule, etc? If you feed your BP and it doesn't come out 'hunting' for another week do you assume you're feeding it the proper sized meals, etc.

[marisa]

I feed both the BPs I have something that's roughly 1.5 times their girth. Sometimes a bit smaller, sometimes a bit larger but roughly that size. I feed them whatever will give a lump for a couple days. I know lots of people go by weight though too! Lots of ways to do it.

Marisa

[mykee]

Marisa's right, everyone does it different. I just eyeball it, I don't use the 'food item as wide as the snakes girth' rule, I feel it's outdated. Each of my balls has their own preferences of what, how large, live, dead, colour... and I listen to them; they're the ones eating.

[MouseKilla]

Yeah, each snake is different in what it likes. I also think that the equal-to-girth rule is out dated unless you want to feed them every 4-5 days. Like Marisa I usually go with something bigger, like 1.5 times girth, which coincidently works out to about 20% of body weight I've found. You would be amazed at how big an item they are capable of getting down, up to equal to their body weight but just remember that they are more likely to refuse a prey item that is intimidatingly large.

Mykee,

A six month old that is 700g +!!! That must be a beast of a female I'm guessing? That's impressive, at that rate she'll be breeding size before her first birthday (as long as she doesn't just decide to stop eating on ya, God forbid).

[mykee]

Killa, I picked up a few het albinos from Don Patterson and a pair of pastels from Mark Mandic and 3 of the 4 females are eating machines. The females all range from 540-760g as of tonight, and the two males are also nothing to scoff at at between 420-510g. They want to eat, I want to feed them. It's a wonderful understanding we've come to really..

[Piers]

Hatchling balls should take sub-adult to adult mice from right out of the egg. They can really take large meals.
Piers

[*Spike*]

all my snakes get f\t or fresh killed

[bailey]

My girl is 8-9 months old and she weigh almost 600 grams already. The largest rat she's taken was a 115 gram rat. She likes the large ones much better than the small and I've found that she like me to cover her warmed prey with a small peice of newspaper so that she can go in and privately smell it and then take it. She's refused a couple of meals in the last month but she nearly always takes the medium rats.

[Gollum]

My bp's 5months old , he about 50cm long ( 20 inches ) and weighs 200-250 grams ( u use grams right ?? ).
What size should i be feeding him... the breeder told me adult mice but hes grown quite a lot .

[MouseKilla]

I would be giving a snake that size one 50 - 60g rat every 5-7 days... just my opinion though.

[Vengeance]

You guys were right about the size, I was skeptical, didn't think he would actually be able to get it down. But he did and it was fun as hell to watch. It was a 50 Gram Rat.

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/3606DSCF0045-med.JPG

Here is just another random Pic I got of him :D

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/3606DSCF0037-med.JPG

Fred and I both thank you for all the good advice I've gotten here.

[elevation24]

Good to see that, Vengeance :) Amazing what size these guys can swallow! :)

[daver676]

Awesome pics! He will grown like a weed now.

[Linds]

Are you sure that your snake is 8 months old since you have only had him for a few weeks? He looks like a wee baby. Wondering why it also looks blue on his underside in the first pic???

[Vengeance]

To be honest I have no real idea exactly how old he is. When I bought him I was told he was aprox 6 months old. I've had him for a month so that would put him at 7 months I assume. I've weigh him and he was 200 grams about 2 weeks ago, no one ever mentioned if that was underweight for his size. I can take a better pic of him tonight when I get home, I'll put something beside him to give it some comparison. As for the Blue stuff, I don't know never seen it before, could be my crappy camera, or could be that I took the picture in complete darkness and relied only on the flash, I'll take a closer look when I get home tonight.

[tHeGiNo]

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/1200dcp_0006.jpg

The bigger one is an 8 month old ball python, so I highly doubt yours is eight months. Then again, with eating rats pinks you never know ;)

To clarify for anyone, ball pythons can take adult mice from the moment they are out of the egg, or equivilantly sized rat pups.