Feeding?

[ssscales]

How much of a pain are BP's really to feed? I mean CBB, established 5-6 month old babies as well as hatchlings?

Do they accept readily F/T prey?
I've got a freezer full of frozen rats and mice of various sizes and ALL my boas even 15 day old neos 90% of the time will take F/T without hesitating.

Will I find myself looking for live mice/rats every weekend or trying to breed my own due to BP's not taking F/T all the time?

[Smulkin]

It's an individual thing - there's no way to forecast or tell what a particular BP will do. They are no more or less prone to take or refuse f/t than boas etc.

[ssscales]

Thanks, but like I wrote before 90% of my boa neos accept F/T for their 1st meal and the other 10% accept it within their 2nd, 3rd or 4th meal.

I was also told a few years ago that JCP's are tough to convert to feeding rats and some only accept mice all their lives, but I had no problem at all with my trio or with a clutch I had last year.

I plan on getting 3-5 established female BP's soon and most are feeding on live mice or rat pups. Most of the breeders I've talk to have females at 200gm for $60-$70 or 300-350gm for $100, but all are feeding live, none are on F/T.

I'm just curious as to how big of a real problem is feeding BP's on a regular basis and/or F/T. It can't be as bad as most would assume because their wouldn't be this many owners/breeders.

[Wild Bill]

From what I have found with bps is usually the younger the snake the easier it is to convert to F/T. With the amount of snakes you already own and the experience you have switching them over you should have no problems establishing a neonate to F/T. The longer the bp has been fed live the harder the switch will be. I bought a hatchling and a 250 gram female recently and had no problems switching both to F/T.

[Smulkin]

I'm just curious as to how big of a real problem is feeding BP's on a regular basis and/or F/T. It can't be as bad as most would assume because their wouldn't be this many owners/breeders.

I've never had much of a problem either feeding them on a regular basis OR getting them to accept f/t (BPs). Even a mite infested rescue (Sesha) pounded on f/t and she was already an adult with established live feeding habits. Again generalizations are only so useful as a means of forecasting. Given good husbandry it should not present you with much of a problem.

[ssscales]

Thanks guys, I don't expect any problems. I plan on getting a few 200gm babies and converting them to P/K & shortly after to F/T after they take a few live meals in my home.

[Adam_Wysocki]

I've found over the years with ball pythons that four things are important when it comes to getting ball pythons to eat well ...

1. Have a consistent and regular feeding schedule and routine - If you feed on the same day each week, at about the same time .... follow the same routine each time you do ... make the same sounds ... expose the snakes to the same smells .... over time you will teach your snake what feeding day is all about ... once you do that, half of the battle is over ... once they are programmed as to what feeding day is all about and can recognize it before you even offer them food, it's easier to get them to accept a meal without a problem.

2. Feed small ... In my experience, ball pythons will "fill up" on food when it is plentiful and then fast to allow their bodies to catch up ... if you want to feed regularly, each and every week and be successful ... then smaller food items are better ... I have 4000 gram females that only eat 1 or maybe 2 40-50 gram rats per feeding ... but they eat every single week all year long.

3. Security, security, security .... keeping ball pythons in low traffic areas with small tight hides and disturbing them as little as possible makes them much better feeders than snakes that are handled and tossed around like show pets.

4. Heat, heat, heat .... Their metabolism is driven by how warm they are, so the warmer they are the hungrier they are ... balls seems to show very little or only luke warm interest in food if they are exposed to temps below 80, so keeping them warmer helps.

Doing all of those things do not make it a "sure thing" that your ball python will take F/T ... eating dead prey items isn't a natural behavior for them and it's something that you must train them to do ... but, doing the four things above in my opinion will greatly improve your chances of getting your ball python to eat anything you'd like it to very consistently.

-adam

[iceman25]

eating dead prey items isn't a natural behavior for them and it's something that you must train them to do

I thought they are opportunistic in the wild and would eat something already dead. Is that true or is it bad information floating around?

[ssscales]

Thanks Adam, as usual great post!

1) Sunday is feeding day here, there are no exceptions unless I have some babies feeding every 5 days, but usually it's every Sunday if I can help it.


2) I don't over feed or feed too large prey at any one time to any of my snakes. My adult female Boas can easily take rabbit sized meals, yet I keep them on one Jumbo rat per meal every two weeks. This of course is adjusted as needed after giving birth, but normally it's every two weeks.

My males can take large rats, yet I feed them medium rat every two weeks. I prefer healthy energetic snakes too fat sluggish unhealthy ones.

3) I have a separate reptile room for all my snakes, very low traffic, very quiet. All lights are on timers set to a 12/12 split accept during cycling periods. I plan on housing the BP's in sterilite tubs of appropriate sizes and they will be housed in their own rack.

4) I have all my cages heated with 12" Flexwatt and all my tubs heated by 3" flexwatt. All are connected to Helix DBS1000 controllers set at the desired temp. Usually 90F-92F for my boas with a cool side at 80F.

I just would really prefer to stay away from live feeders as much as I can most of year, if possible and not depend on them. I love the convenience of frozen feeders and would hate to constantly look for a live feeder source or have to breed my own.

[Adam_Wysocki]

I thought they are opportunistic in the wild and would eat something already dead. Is that true or is it bad information floating around?

I have never read anything that suggested that ball pythons will eat dead prey in the wild.

Their primary resource for hunting is heat and they seem to be tuned in to the heat signature given off by living creatures. Also, they are certainly ambush predators as opposed to hunters, so it's unlikely that they would ever go out in search of dead prey.

I think if the timing was right for a wild ball python and it was traveling, hungry, and came across a freshly dead animal that's heat signature was still similar enough to a living prey item that the snake found it interesting that it could certainly eat it, but that would really be the exception, not the rule in my opinion and in reality, the ball python still wouldn't really know it was eating dead prey.

-adam