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 ), 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.

[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

[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