It’s feeding time!

Today I had my first go at feeding Lacey.  I have been concerned about it as baby pythons have some renown as being easily turned off their food by stress.  If that is the case you can end up having to force feed them.  That is not something that I have liked thinking about.  So I have taken a somewhat cautious approach since Lacey came home.

I have left Lacey alone in her enclosure, doing nothing more than look at her since she came home on Saturday.   The hope was that she would take food when offered at roughly a week since the last feed she took based on the record I was provided.  Today was 6 days since that date and I could wait no longer!  I offered her two pinkie mice using tweezers.  I was very encouraged that she was very interested in the food and poised in a striking pose, testing the scent of the mice when held and jiggled in front of her.  Unfortunately she did not strike.

The good news is however, that she did eat both mice!  I left them in the enclosure and she took and consumed them in her own time.  The bad bit about it is that I didn’t get to witness either event.  The first one I was in the kitchen preparing my lunch.  The second one was after I had gone back to work after lunch.  Shattered.  Plenty of time to see it in the future.  But, I am desperate to see it happen first hand.

Tonight when I got home I was very pleased to see the second bulge in her tummy indicating that she had in fact eaten the second mouse offered.  She was beautifully curled up at the warm end of the enclosure grabbing some toasty temperatures to help with digestion of her meal.  I took the opportunity to handle her for the first time since I transferred her into the enclosure on Saturday.  The plan is to handle her for short periods initially and build up over time so as to avoid stress and putting her off her food.  The photo above was a quick snap taken on my phone while I had her out briefly.  Loving every minute so far!