What should ball pythons eat

Some wild ball pythons will also delight in amphibians, shrews, small birds, and other rodents. Domesticated ball pythons should eat a diet of fuzzy, pinkie, medium, large, or jumbo rats and mice—depending on their life stage. You can feed your ball python live or frozen mice, but keep in mind that they may reject frozen foods after you introduce live mice.

It would help if you never fed a ball python local rodents, however. Outdoor critters could contain disease or pesticides that could make your snake very sick. When it comes to wild versus domesticated ball pythons, each one eats differently—but there are many overlapping similarities, too.

Wild-caught rodents can cause illness or even death. Ashley Bates is a freelance dog writer and pet enthusiast who is currently studying the art of animal therapy.

A mother to four human children— and 23 furry and feathery kids, too — Ashley volunteers at local shelters, advocates for animal well-being, and rescues every creature she finds.

Her mission is to create awareness, education, and entertainment about pets to prevent homelessness. Her specialties are cats and dogs. Skip to content. If you notice any symptoms of sickness in your ball python, take it to an exotic pet or herp vet to get checked out.

Both male and female ball pythons will often go off their food during part of the breeding season every year. Breeding males stop feeding for anything from two to five months while breeding or simply if they can smell breed able females. Females likewise will go off food at the start of the breeding season. Like most things to do with snakes, there are exceptions and some may continue to eat when they are gravid.

Ball pythons eat mostly rodents. In the wild they will feed on any small rodent they can catch and overpower. They will probably also eat small nesting birds if they come across them. In captivity ball pythons can spend their entire lives feeding on either mice or rats. They will however also eat gerbils, multimammate mice, hamsters, and other small exotic breeds of mice.

The vast majority however are happy to munch down domestic bred rodents. You will find ball pythons that will only eat mice while others will prefer rats.

Some however will eat both. We have adult ball pythons that eat both. If you are buying a snake from a breeder or herp pet store, find out what and how they were being fed.

In the United States many larger breeders feed exclusively on live food. That can be a problem if you live in a country where it is illegal to feed life food, or if you only have access to frozen rodents. Most ball pythons are very timid animals.

There are however some tips of the trade toget them feeding more consistently. In the wild, ball pythons are nocturnal creatures resting up in the heat of the day and only venturing out after dark. Be sure to use feeding forceps or hemostats and not your hands to feed your snakes! Forget about the idiots you see on YouTube feeding by hand! After a very short time you should start to understand the different ways in which most of your snakes like to get fed. Some will come straight out when you open their cage looking for food; others will wait in the hide boxes for you to dangle their food in the opening before striking.

Still for others, you might need to simply lay their food in front of their hide and leave it there. Young ball pythons may consume the occasional lizard in the wild, but most eat rodents. They do, however, require smaller rodents than adult ball pythons do. For a variety of reasons, ball pythons occasionally present feeding challenges for their keeper. Specifically, they may refuse food for extremely long periods of time.

But ball pythons will occasionally refuse to eat for weeks, months, or even years in exceptional cases. There are a few reasons ball pythons will refuse food, including some that are common to most snake species as well as a few reasons that are unique to ball pythons.

The most common causes of food refusal include:. Now that you understand some of the reasons that ball pythons may refuse food, we can move on to a few helpful tips and tricks, which may help you get your snake to eat.

A few of the best strategies for tempting finicky ball pythons include:. Ball pythons drink water is much the same way that most other snakes do. Some snakes actually put most of their face in the water while doing so, but this is no cause for concern. Additionally, ball pythons may drink water droplets from their bodies or the environment. Many may only drink once or twice per week. However, it is important to ensure your ball python has access to clean, fresh water at all times. I have a question bout my bald python….

I gave him a large rat, hes bout 2 years old. He got it half way down to the middle of his body then the next day he must have thrown it up. Is this normal. Hi Melinda. A snake regurgitating his meal is not something normal. You can refer to our feeding chart in this article to see if the size of the rat was appropriate.

Bring the regurgitated food with you as it might help the vet to understand what happened. Hope this will be helpful for you and your ball python! Hi, I have a female Ball Python and she is probably atleast 6 years old. Recently she has been having issues eating. Not actually consuming the food but seeing the rat. She will get super close to it and the rat will scare her away or she will look above the rat. Sometimes she will just stare at the glass of the tank when the rats in there.

Have you heard of anything like this before? Thanks in advance for your time. I got him from my Uncle. I think? There is no feeding schedule in the wild, which means that ball pythons need to be opportunistic predators if they want to eat.

That means active hunting and not refusing what they manage to find. Will erratic feeding make your snake more aggressive? Ball pythons are smart enough to know the difference and act accordingly.

Aside from regulating humidity, a large water bowl gives your snake a place to soak, as well as obviously stay hydrated. Keep filled with clean water and change every days. Naturally, if it gets soiled before then, scrub the bowl with a bleach solution and replace water immediately. Note: There is a common belief that distilled or softened water is better for reptiles than tap hard water.

This is false.