My adult male FINALLY ate tonight

mrgrimm · 01-20-15, 09:34 PM

Such a relief to have him eating again! We have had him for around 2 years now I think?? Last fall he stopped eating, and stayed that way for around 5-6 months. It was frustrating and I can't stand wasting frozen rats (lots of them).

Then all of a sudden he took a rat and then ate like a pig all summer, needless to say I was pleased.

This winter he did it again and until tonight was about halfway through his 3rd month of no eating. To save some grief I bought a small frozen rat (instead of usual medium or large) and what do you know - he ATE it finally.

I do my best to keep his temps up, but with ambient temps in our house being 15-25 F cooler than summer time it does drop a bit. I guess it's either the temp change or just a natural clock in his little snake brain that tells him to be more dormant and not eat.

My question is should I try another small rat tomorrow night? After swallowing the one I put the top back on his cage and damped up a towel for on top - I spilled a little water on the outside of his tank and when I was wiping that up he got all "S" and crazy looking like he was ready to do some more killing (well he thinks he's killing anyways, squeezing an already dead rat).

Worth a shot for another rat tomorrow or just wait another week and try a medium?

reptiledude987 · 01-20-15, 09:40 PM

Glad to hear hes eating. What kind of snake it he and how big? Id say prob give him a week.

mrgrimm · 01-21-15, 05:28 AM

Hey man, it's a ball python ( we are in the python regius section afterall )

Been a while since we measured him, but I remember him being right around 4 ft.

fishingfool · 01-21-15, 06:55 AM

Hey there buddy o pal o chum of mine ball pythons tend to go off eatting.beacuse of the change in temp around them in the colder. areas due to temp changes i find adding a light helps keep them nice a warm my young bp went off feeding for about 3 weeks i put daytime light on him for a day and he destroyed a live mouse in less then 30 seconds. flat but turn the heat matt down to the cold side temp and put the light on the other end and it should heat the air temp up

mrgrimm · 02-08-15, 08:28 PM

Thanks guys, he's been eating regularly since I posted this, last week he put down a nice medium/large.

PsychoSnake · 02-08-15, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrgrimm

I do my best to keep his temps up, but with ambient temps in our house being 15-25 F cooler than summer time it does drop a bit. I guess it's either the temp change or just a natural clock in his little snake brain that tells him to be more dormant and not eat.

I know the frustration! My eldest Rosy Boa is like this! She is an irregular eater and just pounded down THREE mice last week. That is the most I have ever gotten her to eat at once.

So congrats, man.