Feeding
In the wild, their diet consists mostly of small mammals, such as African soft-furred rats, shrews and striped mice. Younger individuals have also been known to feed on birds. Pythons imported from the wild tend to be picky eaters and may not respond to food as well as captive-bred pythons, which usually do well on domestic rats and mice, either live, killed, or frozen-thawed. Live feeding a snake can be dangerous for the snake involved and should never be attempted by inexperienced keepers. The size of the prey item given to a python should be equivalent to or slightly larger than the width of the largest part of its body. This python is known for being a picky eater and may not eat for months, particularly during the winter breeding season. While this is not odd, care should be taken to watch that the snake does not experience significant weight loss. Although captive ball pythons may only need to be fed once a week, many owners will feed their python two times a week, or more than one serving at a time. This is done to increase the weight and length of the snake. Most ball pythons will not eat when they are preparing to shed; there are some that will, however. Parasites can also cause the snake to not eat. Other causes of not eating are stress caused by overhandling, temperatures that are too hot or too cold, humidity being too high or low, and not enough areas to hide within the vivarium.
