Non feeding ball update

[mark129er]

The non feeding ball is now a feeding ball. I have had him since July and he ate one mouse. Yesterday he ate a small/ medium rat left in his cage overnight.

Several months and alot of patience but he is finally eating....for now.

[BoidKeeper]

Was the rat left in the cage F/T or live? If F/T you're very lucky because that is the easiest way to feed a snake, drop it in and walk away.
Cheers,
Trevor

[mykee]

Congratulations on having an eating ball, and for not pulling out all your hair and going crazy.

[mark129er]

Neither, it was pre killed. I breed enough rats for my snakes. I killed a small rat, dropped it in, covered the cage and went drinking.

[malaysianbloods]

Sounds good, happy to your ball python is eating again.

[Spirit]

I'm new here so I dont know how knowleged you are in this area, but in all the research I've done in the last few months, I've found that most of the time, the reason a ball will go off feed is due to lack of humidity.

I'm currently dealing with exactly that problem, and my ball refused a rat last sunday, which I either take as a problem switching over from mice, or low humidity (humidity was at 40% ACK!).

So I'm curious... do you know what your humidity levels have been? Did it go up just before he started eating again?

Oh and congrats on the successful feeding! :D

[Slannesh]

Where did you see that humidity vs bad feeding response thing? I don't remember it being mentioned before.

The reason I ask, is untill very recently I was housing my Ball in a tank and the humidity was always low... A large humid hide made for OK sheds and all but I never noticed a decrease in feeding response and when I say low humidity I mean LOW as in around 10% ambient in the winter months when the furnace is running. Granted I could just be lucky, but i've had Ymir for 8 years or so now and until this winter he'd never missed more than 1 meal.

[Artemis]

Ive heard that before, the humidity thing.... dont know how much truth there is too it but I have heard it. 40 isnt that bad for humidity either. I keep mine between 50 and 60, and have never had a problem till now. Still havving issues with this accursed rubbermaid, but my humidity is the same in there as it was in the tank, just has a smaller water dish. I do miss the snake olympic swimming pool I had in the tank, though.

Mark- congrats on the feeding. Hope he keeps it up for ya!

Artemis

[Spirit]

Originally posted by Artemis
Still havving issues with this accursed rubbermaid, but my humidity is the same in there as it was in the tank

Now THIS is interesting. What kind of problems? Why did you switch?

Slannesh: 10%??? REALLY?? And no problems?? Maybe I shouldn't be worried at all then about my 40%!

[nita]

The snakes in the tanks here suffer with lower humidity too (40 - 50%) but they are all eating. When they go into shed I mist daily to increase humidity but I've never had snakes go off feed from low humidity. Low heat will cause a fast though, they won't be able to digest and so they won't eat.