Hunger Strikes

[cash]

Hello, I am writting for a friend who owns a yearling ball python.
It is his first snake and it has maintained its first hunger strike for about 3 months now. when he first recieved the snake it ate like crazy then all of a sudden it stopped eating I personally avoid owning ball pythons because I knew about thier tendency to go on hunger strikes any way I've given all the advice I could think of dark feeding boxes, chicken broth, larger rodents, but nothing seems to be working for him. Is thier any advice someone can give

[eferna]

for what i have read on these forums 3 months without eating is not a lot for an year old ball python. I heard that sometimes they stop eating in the winter months.

If he looks healthy then dont worry about it.

[krrc]

it's not a big deal as long as the snake is helthly but try gerbles I heard they work well.

[Corey Woods]

Don't worry about it.......most start to eat again in the spring time.

Corey
P.S. I once had an adult female go off food for 56 weeks and then start eating frozen/thawed medium rats again.

[BoidKeeper]

I once had a 0.1 7yr old LTC that would have her last meal in Sept and not eat again until June. She did this like clock work. Last year I weighed her in March and she was over 2000g. Don Patterson has her now. Now in my collection I have a male that had his last meal on Sept. 29th. I can't remember the last time I offered him food. A Ball Pythons fast is no reason to avoid them if you know how to handle it. Think of it this way they can be the cheapest snakes in your collection to feed. It may not seem natural to us but nature has designed them this way. My only advice would be weigh the snake and monitor it for weight loss. Keep in mind that the record for a BP fast is 22 months. If the snake is healthy and has eaten it will eat again. It’s when it does not eat at all that worries me.
Cheers,
Trevor