Things You'll Need
- A supply o food (lab rats or mice usually work well and are inexpensive)
- Secure enclosure
- A hiding place for your python to sleep after feeding
Instructions
Provide a habitat for your python. Pythons need to feel secure before they will feed since they sleep for days while digesting a meal and are more or less helpless. Make sure your python has a secure enclosure with several dark hiding places. The temperature should be warm and reasonably humid.
Don’t overfeed a python. A juvenile Ball python needs to feed about every 7-10 days. Adults should be fed every 2-3 weeks. At times pythons will stop eating as part of their natural metabolic cycle, such as during winter, breeding season, or after molting (shedding their skin).
Find a source of food. This easiest option is to buy lab mice or rats as long as the python will eat them. Pythons identify prey by smell and image and some don’t recognize a particular animal as prey so you may need to use another small species like gerbils.
Buy pre-killed rodents or kill the animal before giving it to the python. Most pythons will eat dead prey and it is safer for the python. If you do use live food never leave the python alone. A rat will fight back and can inure a python badly enough to cause scarring (and the snake may refuse any rat as food in the future).
Check temperature and humidity if your python reuses to eat for long enough to lose 15-20% of its weight. You may also try different kinds of animal as or different colored rats or mice. Some pythons even develop a preference for male or female prey.
Leave your python alone following feeding. A Ball python curl up in a dark hiding place and sleep for 4-5 days while digesting its meal.