Help New BP won't eat.

[ixhuntaxi]

Here's my story. I initially had an albino corn that I picked up about 2 months ago. This snake did not eat for about a month so I brought it back to the guys who sold it to me and exchanged it and paid the difference for a bp that is about 10 weeks old. When I picked up my BP it was in the store it was in a 65 gallon tank with about 10 other BP's. So I took this guy home and noticed a tick on him. So for the last 2 weeks i've treated him for the mites/ticks with Nix as well as provent a mite. Now he looks to be fine. I finished treating him on Tuesday. I have had this guy for 2 weeks this being the third week. When I bought him, that same day he deficated(pooped) in the tank. Thoughout the 3 week time span I have offered him hopper mice as well as pinky rat. I've done the braining on the rat last night with no hope. He is somewhat fearful of the food. I noticed yesterday as well that he may be going into shed by the colour of his eyes. But what worries me is that his skin is a little wrinkley. What advice can you guys offer me to get this guy to eat. I know that he was fed live from the store he came from...

Thanks in advance.

[BoidKeeper]

What size cage do you have him in? What are the temps and humidity? Does he have at leat two hide boxes? What was he eating at the store? Sounds to me like he's a WC.
This is what happens when you buy ball pythons from a pet shop.

This is what I would do,
I would put him in a tank no bigger then a 10g.
Newspaper for substrate.
Hot spot of 95
Cold spot of 85
Two small tight dark hide boxes
Keep the cage in a quite place in you home
Don't touch him or look at him except to change his water for three more weeks.
Under normal conditions even for CBB stuff I don't try to feed them for two weeks so that they have time to acclimate.
In this case it was living in a pet shop with a bunch of other balls, then it had external paracites (probably has internal too) which needed to be treated. All this leads to stress. The more stress the longer the acclimation period will need to be.
In three weeks try 1 live pinkie rat. It's easier to switch to frozen thawed once they have an established feeding shedual.
One it eats follow the 4 and 1 rule. I don't touch them until they've had 4 meals back to back and one dump.
Once the snake dumps take it to the vet to get it checked for internal paracites.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Cheers,
Trevor
PS
You were better off with the corn.

[ixhuntaxi]

Thanks for the help. The funny thing is I bought this from a supposedly very reputible reptile shop. My bud picked up a ball as well with a tick issue. Makes you wonder. I have him right now in a 10 gallon with paper towel substrate. He only has one hide box and there is a 55W heat bulb on the opposite side of the hide box. I can change this up without a doubt. How long can he go without eating before I should start worrying. He apparently is 10 weeks old. Let me know, and again thanks for your help.

[BoidKeeper]

He only has one hide box and there is a 55W heat bulb on the opposite side of the hide box.
With this set up he has to chose between security and heat, they will always chose security. That choice means that they are then too cold too eat.
Also the 55w bulb is too hot for a 10g. If you measure the temp under that blub you may find that it is over 100 degrees.
Personally I would go with a heat pad. UTH heat is better for balls as they spend a lot of their time under ground not basking on a sun soaking up the sun.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Auskan]

Trevor has given some great advice. Ditto on the security/versus warmth. Also, ditto that a UTH (under tank heater) is better than a light for warmth. Also - the heat needs to be on a rheostat (dimmer) so that you can monitor the temps.

A concern I had when reading your post is that it sounds like you have offered food quite a few times already. For a BP, I would give it at least 2 weeks to settle into its new accommodations before even offering food. Preferably during this time, I would have it in a low traffic area of the house, covered by a towel, and only check once a week to spot clean and change water. Following this acclimatization period, I would offer one food item, and if this was refused, I would wait another two week period before even offering again. It sounds like you have been inadvertantly stressing out the snake by offering food frequently, which is going to ensure that he DOESN'T eat. That combined with being too cold because his only secure hide is away from the heat, I am not at all surprised that he's not eating.

The first thing to do is to correct your husbandry. Trevor has already outlined how to do this in his first post, so I won't go over it again. BPs are kind of finicky and you want to get his conditions as ideal as possible in order to get him eating regularly.

[mykee]

I think the most important thing that you could do at this point is to leave the ball alone for at least a week, and go out and buy a book on the captive husbandry of ball pythons, and read it a few times, both you and the snake will thank you for it.

[sapphire_moon]

You said his skin was wrinkly. The only time I know of a snake with wrinkly skin is when it is dehydrated. Correct your husbandry as pointed out, and I would up the humidity a bit. And provide a bowl of water big enoug for the snake to sit in. You might even want to use a small rubbermaid with a lid and a hole cut in the lid so the snake feels secure. Just make sure the hole is big enough for the snake to fit in if it has eaten a meal.


Also you said nothing about HOW you are measuring heat?

After you get the UTH (or human heating pad, just make sure it isn't the kind that shuts off after 2 hours)

Get a good digitial thermometer from somewhere like wal-mart (only about 14 dollars USD) and put the probe on the inside of the cage, RIGHT OVER the UTH inside the hide, put the paper towel back down over it.

If you get the kind of UTH that you stick to the tank, DON'T stick it to the tank, it will ruin the UTH if you pull it off.