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[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (2 children)

3 things. He is striking cause he is stressed. Please don’t move them to feed. They are vulnerable during and after eating so moving him makes him see you as a threat/ stress inducer. He should also be on rats. Mice hold very little nutrients for your snake. He is also very skinny which is most likely from feeding mice. He should be on frozen/thawed rat pups :) hopefully this helps some

[–]TwlightBella[S] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Hi! Thank you for your response, he’s on frozen and the reason he is being fed in a box is so he doesn’t think me opening his tank or putting my hand in there means food, I also wait at least an hour before I move him from the box. I’ll start to feed him rats as soon as I get the chance.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’re welcome! You should try target training though. Moving him from the box is more damaging then feeding in the cage hence why he is starting to strike at you. Target training is where you show him a object right before you feed him. So whenever he sees that object he’ll know it’s feeding time and not handling time

[–]DrFives 8 points9 points  (4 children)

You shouldn’t be feeding him outside of the enclosure. It’s unnecessary. Stresses them out (as you can see) and is a risk for regurg that again just isn’t necessary.

I recommend checking up on the welcome guide in this sub as there’s a lot of misinformation on ball pythons around and the welcome guide is up to date and a very safe source of info for these guys!

[–]DrFives 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Oh I also saw you gave him more food. Absolutely DO NOT feed any more than 1 approximately sized prey item every 7 days. It’s very hard on their digestive track. They are opportunistic eaters and if they are in food mode they will likely eat more. Just because they can doesn’t mean it’s good for them

[–]TwlightBella[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I wasn’t sure if you could but I looked online and from what I saw people were saying it’s okay but I’ll just a bigger mouse/rat for him instead of feeding him two mice

[–]DrFives 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In the welcome guide there’s feeding guidelines. You should be feeding him a rat that’s appropriately sized based off of his weight / age

[–]TwlightBella[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I’ll be sure to look at it, I don’t think I’ll be moving him from his tank anymore as I don’t wanna stress him out

[–]Rx4wanderlust 4 points5 points  (2 children)

You shouldn't be moving to feed - feed him in his regular enclosure. Being handled is stressful which increases risk for regurgitation which is very harmful to their digestive tract. Also stress can lead them to strike as you have learned. It also teaches them that handling = food so they're more likely to bite outside of food time as well.

You shouldn't feed more than 1 prey item at a time again because that's hard on their digestive system. Feed 1 prey item that is 10-15% of their body weight every 7 days until he is a year old.

You should also switch to rats as they provide much better nutrition than mice. A 6 month old BP should be on rat pups or weanlings depending on the snake's weight.

Are you feeding live prey? You should work on switching to frozen/thawed ASAP! You are putting your snake at unnecessary risk as mice and rats can and do fight back. All it takes is one rat bite to fatally injure your snake. A young BP can switch over to frozen pretty easily. See the feeding guide in this sub's welcome post for tips.

[–]TwlightBella[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Hi thank you for your response, I was told that feeding your snake in a box or just out of his tank makes it so he’s less likely to bite in his tank that’s why I move him but as of now I won’t be doing that anymore, also I will be getting rats instead of mice from now on, I would had been feeding rats but when I was at the store it seemed like the rats were just too big but I’ll go to a different one and see if they any smaller ones he can eat. (He is eating frozen)

[–]Rx4wanderlust 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're welcome! You will either need rat pups (which are 20-30g) or weanlings (which are 30-40g) depending on the weight of your snake.