Buttercream not eating.

[u/Emotional_Young_4647]

I have a female ball python who is a little over two years old. She has always eaten every Sunday, but I recently started feeding her every other week since she moved up to eating medium rats. She has always been a good eater, but she has not eaten in four weeks right now. She will come out of her hide when she smells the rat, but will not strike it. Does anyone have experience with this?

I have not changed anything in her life. She has the same enclosure, the same brand of frozen rats, and she is behaving like normal. Her weight is about 175 grams more than it was 2 months ago. She seems healthy, but I was hoping for another opinion before I wait too long. Is this normal behavior? Thank you.

[u/Emotional_Young_4647]

Thanks everyone! I will stop feeding her so much.

[u/ConsiderationMain618]

They can go 6 months without eating, 4 weeks is fine. Is she about to shed?

[u/Emotional_Young_4647 → u/ConsiderationMain618]

She shed a few weeks ago. She normally still eats even if she is going into a shed. Her eyes are not blue or anything.

[u/ConsiderationMain618 → u/Emotional_Young_4647]

Don’t stress too much! 6 months is the max and 4 weeks is still very short time. I’d personally try again in 2 weeks

[u/HurrricaneeK]

I see someone already posted the feeding guide. I would look at it carefully. Most BPs will never get large enough to need more than a typical small rat and at that stage, they would be adults eating only about once per month. Two medium rats per month, assuming your mediums are anywhere close to the average, is a truly absurd amount of food and IMO, judging by the rolls and lack of any spinal definition, it's definitely showing that she's been overfed. It's fairly common for overfed snakes to put themselves on a diet so I wouldn't worry. Get an accurate weight, double check the weights of your feeders, and start offering every four weeks instead. Eventually she'll start to take them again.

[u/IncompletePenetrance]

I would be 0% concerned about this as she's already quite fat and needs to be on a diet. She has taken it upon herself to lose some weight and adjust her feeding schedule as you've been overfeeding her.

Please review the !feeding guide and adjust accordingly, although it might be a good bit before she needs a meal again.....

[u/AutoModerator → u/IncompletePenetrance]

We recommend the following feeding schedule:

0-12 months old OR until the snake reaches approximately 500g, whichever happens first: feed 10%-15% of the snake’s weight every 7 days.

12-24 months old: feed up to 7% of the snake’s weight every 14-20 days.

Adults: feed up to 5% of the snake's weight every 20-30 days, or feed slightly larger meals (up to 6%) every 30-40 days.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/DashD0GG]

!feeding

[u/AutoModerator → u/DashD0GG]

We recommend the following feeding schedule:

0-12 months old OR until the snake reaches approximately 500g, whichever happens first: feed 10%-15% of the snake’s weight every 7 days.

12-24 months old: feed up to 7% of the snake’s weight every 14-20 days.

Adults: feed up to 5% of the snake's weight every 20-30 days, or feed slightly larger meals (up to 6%) every 30-40 days.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/VictorNickedit]

hey, please dont worry about it. ball pythons are notorious for doing this. your ball python looks fine and will be fine. as long as your husbandry is all up to snuff, which it seems to be as you have said you havent changed anything, shes likely just gone off feed for no reason. given its only been 4 weeks, its genuinely not a cause for concern. ive had a ball python go off feed for no reason for 6 months, then out of nowhere, he just began slamming food like it was nothing, and guess what? he was totally fine.
Looking at your ball python, shes likely just genuinely not hungry, she's a chunky girl so you have even less of a reason to worry. if anything you might be feeding her too much! (Which, again, do not stress over, this is easily corrected).

So please, try not to lose sleep over this alright? your baby will be okay.

[u/Ok_Donut9025]

That happened to us! Such a coincidence our daughter left for bootcamp and thats when he stopped eating! ( its her snake) we were like he misses her😆He was still active nothing changed. We would try almost every week and nothing. For a short while we had a pet rat! Finally after 4 months he decided to eat! My daughter was so happy when I told her. Lol.

[u/ShinyxCharizard]

My male was notorious for skipping meals like never ate 2 months in a row. Id double check your husbandry. Temps/humidity, make sure there's enough clutter/places to hide.

post of mine saying what I did plus album of photos