Feeding Your Ball Python
“Take them out of their cage to feed them, it makes them tamer”
FALSE
“Feeding live mice/rats will make them more aggressive”
NOPE
“It is normal for Ball Pythons to go off feed”
DEAD WRONG
“They need to eat a medium rat every 7 days"
HAHA, STILL NO
"You have to stun the rat before feeding so it doesn't bite your snake"
PLEASE DON'T EVER DO THIS
Okay, now that we have gotten that out of the way, let’s all take a deep breath and talk about why all these statements are incorrect. To fully understand these snakes, we have to be aware of their natural behavior. Ball Pythons spend most of their time in the wild hiding inside termite mounds, waiting for a small, furry creature to come by. They rarely ever leave their hiding spots except to find another hiding spot or to breed. Being outside their hiding spot means they are in danger of being eaten by birds or other predators from above.
Moving to Feed - Just Don't Do It
Moving to feed is an outdated misconception that removing your snake from its enclosure to feed it prevents it from associating feeding time with its home. Here’s why that’s wrong. Ball Pythons are most comfortable in their enclosures, tucked away in a dark, cramped spot. They’re ambush predators, meaning they sit and wait for their prey to come to them. When you take them out of their cage, and put them in a separate container, you have taken them from their safe place and put them in an unknown place with nowhere to hide. Then, you add a (potentially live) feeder that in more natural circumstances can cause quite a bit of damage to an exposed snake. If your snake manages to ignore its fear of being exposed enough to eat, you will then need to move them back into their cage. Handling or other types of stress so soon after eating puts them at high risk for regurgitation.
Regurgitation is when your snake essentially vomits up its meal shortly after eating. Constricting and swallowing a meal takes a great deal of energy but the meal should outweigh the energy lost. When your snake regurges, it has now expended quite a bit of energy but has no meal to regain the energy lost. For this reason, it is best to not handle your snake for 24-48 hours after feeding.
Now that we know that it is best to feed your snake in its enclosure, what can we do to make sure the snake doesn’t think WE are food?
Some snakes, you don’t need to do anything special. With these guys, you can just reach in and they know better than to strike at your hand. Some snakes need a literal heads up. Tap training is a popular method to take the snake out of hunting mode by gently tapping their face/head, usually with a snake hook. As long as you are gentle, you will not injure your snake, but you will make it clear to them that it is not time for food.
Live VS Pre-Killed VS Frozen/Thawed
Which one is the best? That's easy! It's the one YOUR snake will eat!
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Live is generally going to be the preference of most Ball Pythons, especially young ones. This is the most natural way for your snake to eat so instinct takes over and makes this a fairly simple process. Live feeders have a few caveats though. Firstly, live rodents are not harmless! If your snake doesn't eat the rodent right away, sometimes the rodent will start eating the snake. Once your snake has struck and is constricting, rodents will often fight with everything they've got left which usually entails biting onto the closest thing as hard as they can. For these reasons, live feeding should always be supervised and the rodent should not be left in with the snake if not eaten.
Secondly, live rodents are not always easy or affordable to acquire, especially in less populated areas.
Lastly, you'll need to be okay with what is going to happen. Your snake is a predator, acting on instinct. Your feeder rodent has been specifically bred and raised to feed another animal. Your predator is going to kill and eat your rodent in order to survive and grow and this is exactly what it is supposed to do.
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Please, do not ever "stun" your live feeder rodents!
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Stunning is another outdated practice of holding the rodent by the tail and swinging them at a counter edge or wall in order to make them less of a threat to the snake. Not only is this incredibly inhumane, but it often fails to keep the snake safer. If anything, you'll now have a scared and injured rodent that is ready to defend itself instead of a naive and calm rodent. Feeder rodents are food, but they are still living, breathing, feeling creatures that should be treated with respect prior to fulfilling their purpose. They should be well fed and cared for. A healthy rodent is more nutritious for your snake than a malnourished, dehydrated rodent.
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If you want to make for a safer feeding experience for your snake, you can humanely dispatch your feeder rodent and then immediately offer it to your snake. These methods include Cervical Dislocation (which entails internally severing the spinal cord) or a CO2 chamber (where the rodents fall asleep and then pass away from lack of oxygen). Rodents 7 days or younger can be frozen, but this is not an acceptable method for older rodents. Regardless of which method you choose, it is best to learn from someone experienced in the method before attempting yourself.
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Frozen/thawed rodents are a great source of food for your snake if they are prepared correctly and your snake will eat them. When purchasing frozen/thawed rodents, there's a few things to look for in a quality product. First, the feeders should be healthy and at a good body weight before being frozen. They should be clean and neatly packaged. They should be frozen solid as anything that has thawed and refrozen is not safe to feed to your animal. The supplier should be open about how they were raised and how they were killed. It also helps to buy from a supplier that is well known because you'll know that many other customers were happy with the quality they received. Improperly prepared, kept, or warmed f/t feeders pose a serious risk to your animal so use this method with caution.
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Once you purchase your frozen/thawed (f/t) rodents, you'll want to get them right into the freezer until you are ready to feed your snake. There are a few different ways to prepare f/t but the key concepts remain the same. Your goal is to thaw and warm it, not cook it! Never microwave, bake or boil f/t rodents. It is best to thaw them by leaving them in the refrigerator overnight or letting them sit in cold/room temp water. Once the rodent is soft, you can warm them with a hair dryer, heat lamp or by letting it sit in warmer water. Your goal is to get the rodent to the same temperature as a live rodent (about 100 degrees F) without cooking it or otherwise damaging it. Soggy, over heated rodents can pop! And nobody wants that.
We recommend using tongs for feeding so there is more distance between your warm, alive hand and the kind of warm, dead rodent. Some snakes will latch onto a warmed f/t rodent before you can even open their enclosure all the way. Others need more stimulation to queue them that this is food (ie. movement). Practice your rat dance! Try to make the f/t rodent look like a live one. In our experience, snakes with a strong feeding response do quite well with f/t, but those that are more on the shy side need the stimulation of a live rodent.
How Often & What Size Should I Feed My Snake?
There are several factors to consider when deciding what and when to feed but the goal is to maintain a healthy body condition. Ball Pythons are prone to becoming obese since they are not a particularly active snake. As ambush hunters, they could wait weeks in the wild for a meal to present itself so they are heavily opportunistic feeders. This means that they will eat even when not hungry in case another prey item doesn't show up for another 2 months.
You'll often hear the Ball Pythons need to be fed every 7 days for their entire lives.
NOPE!
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We'll feed hatchlings every 7 days while they are getting started and taking their first few meals, but after that they go to about every 10 days. Beyond that, there's less of a schedule and more of a regular monitoring of body condition. No Ball Python beyond hatchling size needs to eat weekly. In fact, feeding less often is very beneficial for your animal. It has been well documented that these guys get shortened lifespans and a multitude of health problems when fed too much/too often. And, when feeding less often, you're less likely to have your snake refuse a meal. Slow growth is the goal for a healthy animal.
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The larger the meal offered, the longer your snake can go between meals. Our mature adults (weighing in at 1500+ grams) are generally fed medium frozen/thawed rats every 3-4 weeks, with a slight increase during breeding. Our smaller snakes eat about every 2 weeks on a variety of adult mice or small rats, both live and f/t.
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To choose a feeder size start by looking at the widest part of your snake's body. You're looking for a prey item that is roughly 1 to 1.5 times that width. If you're not quite sure, it's safest to go with something a little smaller than a little too big.
Mice, Rats & African Soft Furs
This part is easy. Feed what your snake will eat.
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African Soft Fur Rats are the Ball Pythons natural food source and often the most readily eaten food item. However, they are more difficult to find and are illegal in several states. Rats and mice are fairly interchangeable with one exception. Calcium levels in a fuzzy rat are significantly lower than a similarly sized mouse. For this reason, we generally recommend feeding mice until the snake can take rats larger than adult mice. While a very small percentage of snakes will get hooked on a particular feeder, most snakes can switch between feeder types easily and regularly.
Snake Not Eating?
99% of the time, when a Ball Python stops eating, it's because there's an issue with their husbandry. They might feel too exposed in their enclosure to risk eating and being vulnerable. The temperatures provided might be too low for them to digest their meals. The humidity provided might be too low, causing the snake to become dehydrated. Make sure to check all aspects of your snake's care if you run into this problem.
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Not sure what's wrong? Try reading through our BP Basic Husbandry page to see if there's something missing. If you're still having issues, feel free to contact us.
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If you've checked that every aspect of your husbandry is correct and your snake still isn't eating, it's time to consider more serious issues such as a Respiratory Infection, Mouth Rot, Tooth Abscess, etc. It is best to find a Veterinarian that is experienced in treating reptiles with the latest treatments. Many of these issues require a bacterial culture so that the doctor can prescribe the correct antibiotic injections. Exotic veterinarians often cost more than ones that just see cats and dogs, so you'll want to have some emergency funds set aside in the case that you need to utilize their services.