Reptile care >> Snakes >> Ball Python Feeding

Ball Python Feeding Advice

© 2019, Brandon Cornett | All rights reserved

Ball pythons are one of the most popular snakes kept as pets. There are some very good reasons for this. They are relatively small snakes, at least by python standards. They don't require a lot of maintenance. They are generally docile and reluctant to bite. And they're available in many different colors and patterns, known as "morphs."

But there is one aspect of ball python care that frustrates a lot of first-time keepers -- and that is feeding.

If you plan to keep a ball python as a pet, there's a 99% chance you'll have feeding problems at some point. Maybe your ball python decides to fast (stop eating) through the winter. Maybe it prefers freshly killed prey and refuses to eat frozen / thawed rodents. Maybe it only eats when you wiggle a dead rat on the end of a pair of tongs. I've seen it all over the years. If you're lucky, you'll have a ball python that eats on a regular basis, all year round. Just don't count on it.

InfoGraphic: Ball Python Feeding

It's common for ball pythons to refuse a meal once in a while. I know this for two reasons. First, I've kept several of these snakes over the years. So I'm very familiar with their feeding habits. Secondly, I publish a reptile-care forum, and this is one of the number-one complaints among ball python keepers. "Help! My snake won't eat. What should I do?" The forum caters to other types of pet snakes, as well. But it's the ball python in particular that generates so much feeding-related frustration among keepers.

In this article, you'll learn nearly everything you need to know about feeding your ball python in captivity.

7 Topics Covered in This Care Sheet

We are going to cover a lot of information in this ball python care sheet, because you probably have a lot of questions. Most first-time snake keepers do. Here are the specific topics we will address:

  1. The feeding "personality" of ball pythons
  2. How often to feed your pet snake
  3. What size prey to offer
  4. The benefits of using frozen / thawed rodents
  5. The dangers of using live prey
  6. The importance of temperature and hiding areas
  7. What to do when your ball python won't eat

Note: The following information is based on my 20+ years of experience working with ball pythons in captivity. Other keepers may argue some of the points made in this article, and that's fine. I do not claim to know everything about these animals. But I can proudly say that I've never had a ball python become ill while under my care. Take that for what it's worth.

1. The Ball Python Feeding "Personality"

Ball pythons tend to have a lot of individuality, when it comes to feeding. You can make generalized statements about other species. For example, it is well known that California kingsnakes have a voracious appetite and rarely refuse a meal. But you cannot make such generalized statements about feeding ball pythons. They all have their own "food personalities."

Here's an example. I once kept four ball pythons in the same room, under the exact same conditions. They were all healthy specimens. They were all siblings from the same litter or "clutch." But their feeding personalities were completely different:

  • One snake would eat anything, at any time of the day.
  • Two of them would only eat freshly killed prey, and would refuse anything that had been frozen and thawed.
  • One would only eat after sunset, while the other three could be coaxed into eating during the day.
  • One would only strike at a dead rat if I made it "run" around the cage with a set of feeding tongs.
  • One of the ball pythons would fast every winter, like clockwork. The others ate year round.

My conversations with other keepers reinforce this point. Ball pythons have highly individualized feeding responses. As a keeper, it's your job to figure out what evokes a strong feeding response from your particular snake. You need to study its food personality. We will talk more about this as we go along. For now, just realize that these snakes are all unique in terms of their eating habits.

2. How Often to Feed Your Ball Python

This is another common question among first-time snake keepers: "How often should I feed my ball python for optimal health?" As a general rule, you can feed your pet snake every 7 - 10 days. Babies and juveniles can be fed more often, because they have a faster rate of growth. Adult ball pythons (three years and up) can be fed less frequently.

Like most members of the Pythonidae family, ball pythons have a fairly slow metabolism. They are slow-moving animals that typically rely on ambush-style hunting tactics. They do not chase down their prey, like a gopher snake or whipsnake. As a result, they can be fed less often than these "new world" snakes. Ball pythons can also go a long period of time without eating, and often without any ill effects. We will discuss fasting under topic #7 below.

To reiterate, you can feed your ball python an appropriately sized meal every 7 - 10 days. And that brings us to the next topic of discussion. What size of mouse or rat should you offer?

3. The Size of the Prey Items

Like other members of their genus, ball pythons can eat rodents that are larger than their heads. The skin around their jaws is very elastic in nature. It stretches so that the snake can engulf a fairly large prey item. This doesn't mean you should offer huge prey items to your snake. From a health standpoint, ball pythons do better on a steady diet of moderately sized rodents -- as opposed to an enormous rodent every two or three weeks.

As a general rule, you should offer mice or rats that are roughly the same width as the snake's midsection. They can be slightly larger than the snake's midsection, too. There's no harm in that. The meal should leave a slight lump in your ball python's belly -- "slight" being the key word. If you end up with a large bulge that looks like a tennis ball inside a garden hose, the prey item is too big.

Just because your snake can physically ingest a huge meal doesn't mean it should do this on a regular basis. Stick to the rule of thumb mentioned above. Offer an appropriately sized meal every 7 - 10 days. Choose mice or rats that are about the same width as the snake's widest part, or slightly larger than that.

And remember, ball pythons can become obese just like humans can. These snakes should be nice and stout when they are fully grown. But they shouldn't be fat. If you feed your ball python too frequently -- or if you offer meals that are too large -- you'll end up with a fat, unhealthy snake. (Tip: If the snake's scales look they are stretched away from one another when the body is relaxed, and you can easily see the skin between the scales, the snake is probably overweight.)

4. The Benefits of Using Frozen / Thawed Rodents

Now you know (A) how often to feed your ball python and (B) what size meals to offer. Let's shift gears and talk about the manner in which you present the meal. There are basically three ways to feed a pet snake:

  1. You can offer frozen rodents that have been thawed and warmed.
  2. You can offer freshly killed rodents.
  3. You can offer live prey.

Of these three feeding techniques, the first option is by far the best. If you can "condition" your ball python to accept frozen / thawed prey, by all means do so. It's convenient for you, and it's safe for the snake. Frozen rodents cannot pass parasites along to your snake, because the freezing process kills any parasites that may have been present. A frozen / thawed rat cannot bite and severely injure your ball python (more to follow on this). Frozen rodents are easier to store, as well. You can buy them in bulk and keep them in the freezer until needed. I have a chest freezer in my garage for this very purpose. But I keep a lot of snakes. If you only keep one ball python as a pet, you could use a separate drawer or shelf in your kitchen freezer to store your frozen feeders.

You can clearly see the benefits of feeding your ball python with frozen / thawed prey. It is by far the best option, for you and for the snake. You can buy frozen mice and rats from a local pet store, or you can buy them in larger quantities online. I've been using RodentPro.com for nearly ten years. They have great service. The shipping costs can be expensive, but you can minimize this expense by ordering a large quantity -- enough to hold you for a full year.

5. The Dangers of Offering Live Prey

In the wild, ball pythons attack and eat live rodents. These snakes come from Africa. The bulk of their diet is made up of small rodents, such as the soft-furred rat. Ball pythons are perfectly equipped to strike, constrict and kill their prey. So why not offer them live rodents in captivity? Because it's not a natural environment -- it's a captive environment. As such, it presents certain dangers that would not exist in the wild.

There will come a time when your ball python does not want to eat. If this happened in the wild, the snake simply wouldn't hunt. It would remain in hiding until it was ready to eat. But in captivity, things are different. If you place a live rodent into the cage of a snake that's not interested in eating, the tables can be turned. The predator might become the prey. Rodents can bite ball pythons, causing serious injury. This is especially true of rats, which are must stronger than mice. A full-grown rat can bite a ball python down to the bone. Do a Google image search, and you'll see exactly what can happen. It's not pretty.

Rodent bites can be nasty. The bite itself is only one problem. The resulting infection is another. If your ball python receives a serious bite from a rodent, you'll be in for some veterinary bills. I can promise you that much. This is why I recommend feeding frozen / thawed prey to your pet ball python. It's safer for the animal, and less stressful for you!

If your snake refuses to eat thawed rodents, you can try offering freshly killed rodents. This is a compromise between frozen and live prey. The rodent appears fresh and warm, which will evoke a stronger feeding response. But it still presents no threat to the snake.

6. The Importance of Cage Temperatures and Hiding Areas

Your ball python will be more likely to eat on a regular basis if you maintain the proper temperatures inside the cage. In my experience, ball pythons are likely to stop eating as a result of improper cage temperatures. They seem to be more sensitive to these things than other types of snakes (such as colubrids). A kingsnake, for example, will generally have a strong appetite across a wide range of temperatures. Thus, they are more forgiving of husbandry errors on the keeper's part. But the ball python seems to have much less tolerance for temperature deviation.

If the cage temperatures do not fall within the ideal range, the ball python is likely stop eating. This is the first thing you should troubleshoot if you have feeding problems with your snake. Make sure the temps fall within the ideal range for this species. I maintain a gradient of 80 - 95 degrees (Fahrenheit) in my cages. This seems to produce the best feeding response in these snakes. If the temperatures fall below this range, for whatever reason, the ball pythons will start refusing their meals.

It's also important to offer some hiding areas inside the snake's cage. Ball pythons are shy snakes. That's how they get their names. When they feel threatened, they curl their bodies into a ball and hide their heads. As a result of their shyness, these snakes have a tendency to become over-stressed. Excessive handling is a common causes of stress in reptiles. If you have a good feeding response with your ball python, then you probably have nothing to worry about. But if the animal refuses to eat, you should reduce the frequency of handling.

You can also reduce and prevent stress by giving your ball python a couple of hiding places inside the cage. In the wild, these snakes spend most of their time hiding (often in rodent burrows). It's their natural behavior. So you should allow for this when creating your snake's habitat. Offer a hiding area on both the warmer and cooler sides of the cage. This is the best thing you can do to reduce stress, which in turn will help you succeed with your ball python feeding regimen.

You can make a "snake hide" out of many different materials. The hide should be slightly larger than the snake, so it feels "snug" when it crawls inside. It should also be completely closed off and private, aside from the entrance hole. I like to use the plastic drip trays that go under plant pots. You can buy them in several different sizes at Home Depot. They are easy to clean. They can nestled down into a loose substrate, such as aspen bedding or cypress mulch. And you can easily cut a hole in the top, to allow your snake to crawl in and out. I use the ones made by Fiskars. Do a Google search for Fiskars resin terra pot tray, and you can see what I'm talking about.

What does this have to do with feeding your ball python? Everything! If you give your snake a couple of good hiding spots inside the cage, it will be more likely to eat regularly. So spend the $8 for a couple of appropriately sized plastic drip trays. Less stress = stronger appetite.

7. When Your Ball Python Won't Eat

As mentioned earlier, ball pythons have a tendency to refuse meals once in a while. They might do this for a variety of reasons. Here are the most common reasons for meal rejection:

  • The snake is in a shed cycle (also known as ecdysis).
  • The cage is either too hot or too cold.
  • The snake is stressed for some reason.
  • The snake has some kind of health problem (bacterial infection, parasites, respiratory infection, etc.).
  • The snake is in a seasonal fasting period.

Shedding...
 Ball pythons shed through their entire lives. They shed more frequently when they are young, because that's when they grow the fastest. It's common for snakes to stop eating when they are going into a shed. In ball pythons, the start of a shed cycle is fairly easy to notice. The skin and eyes will become milky blue in color. The animal will stay in this "cloudy" condition for a few days, after which the skin and eyes will clear up. A couple of days later, the snake will shed its skin. Don't be surprised if your ball python refuses to eat during this period. It's best to leave them alone until they are done shedding.

Too Cold / Too Hot...
 See topic #6 above. Before feeding your ball python, you need to make sure the cage temperatures fall within the ideal range. This will encourage a stronger feeding response, and it will also help the animal digest its meals properly. You'll find different temperature recommendations from different experts. There are no hard and fast rules. Through trial and error, I've discovered that a temperature gradient of 80 - 95 (F) works well for this species. My ball pythons are more likely to eat on a regular basis when kept under these conditions. I allow my cage temps to drop a few degrees at night, as the house naturally cools.

Stress...
 See topic #6 above. We talked about the importance of hiding areas inside the snake's cage. A ball python that feels secure inside its habitat will be more likely to eat on a regular basis. On the contrary, a snake that feels over-exposed and stressed is more likely to refuse meals. Create some hides. This is one of the easiest things you can do to ensure the health of your pet.

Sickness...
 Snakes that are ill will often refuse to eat. If your ball python stops eating out of the blue, you should evaluate the animal for any other signs of illness. Give it a close-up examination for mites and ticks. Observe the snake for signs of respiratory infection (open-mouth breathing, wheezing, fluid coming from the nostrils, etc.). If the snake appears to be otherwise healthy, it might be refusing to eat for one of the other reasons on this list. Maybe it's a seasonal fast. Maybe the cage is too hot or too cool. Maybe the snake is going into a shed cycle.

Seasonal Fasting...
 Some ball pythons will eat through the winter, while others will stop eating in response to certain seasonal cues. "But I keep the cage temperatures the same all year long," the snake keeper says. That may be so, but the snake can still detect subtle changes that signal the changing of seasons. The days get shorter. The house gets cooler at night. These things can trigger a seasonal fasting period in captive ball pythons.

Seasonal fasting might not take place until the snake has reached sexual maturity. This might happen around age two for males, or age three for females. So it's common to have a ball python that eats year round as a baby and juvenile, and then starts fasting through the winter when it reaches adult size. This can cause a lot of confusion among some keepers. I can't tell you how many times I've received an email like this: "Help. My snake has stopped eating. It's about three years old. It has never done this before." In many cases, this is simply a case of a ball python that has reached sexual maturity, and has started fasting through the winter.

Checklist for Ball Pythons That Won't Eat

Here are some of the steps you should take if your ball python stops eating:

  1. Check the temperatures at ground-level inside the cage. This should be your first step. Refer back to topic #6 above.
  2. Check for other signs of illness.
  3. Make sure you have a couple of hiding spots inside the snake's cage. This will reduce stress, which increases the feeding response.
  4. Reduce the frequency of handling. Leave your ball python alone for a while. Go into the cage as needed for cleaning and maintenance, but keep your hands off the snake for a few days. Try another meal after a week or so.
  5. Wait a few days before offering the next meal. If the animal is stressed for some reason, daily feeding attempts will only make matters worse. Wait about a week before you offer another meal.
  6. Offer the next meal after sunset. Ball pythons are mostly nocturnal in the wild. So it's common for them to have a stronger feeding response at night. I get the strongest feeding response just after sunset. A ball python that shows little interest in food in the morning or afternoon will often devour that same meal at night. Experiment with this.
  7. Don't panic. Ball pythons can go a long time without eating. One of my snakes will fast every year like clockwork, from October to January. It goes four months without a single meal, and it hardly loses any body weight. Be patient and persistent with your feeding attempts. Don't panic. If the snake is healthy, it will eat eventually.
  8. Try to wiggle the prey item on a pair of tongs, to make it appear alive. One of my snakes will ignore a thawed rat if its motionless. But when I use a pair of feeding tongs to make the rat "run" around the cage, the ball python suddenly gets excited. Remember, these are highly individualized snakes with unique food personalities. You'll have to experiment with different feeding techniques.
  9. If you've been offering frozen / thawed rodents with no luck, try offering freshly killed prey.
  10. Try leaving the meal in the snake's cage overnight (as long as it's not a live rodent).
  11. Try offering a gerbil. I have found that even the most finicky ball python will readily eat a gerbil. They LOVE gerbils!
  12. Refer to the links provided in the "recommended reading" section below.

I hope you have enjoyed this guide to feeding ball pythons. Create a proper habitat for your pet snake. Keep the cage clean and warm. Maintain a proper temperature gradient. Offer a couple of hiding spots. Minimize your handling until the snake is eating on a regular basis. These feeding tips will serve you well in the future. If you have any questions about this information, feel free to leave a comment below.