Weird Feeding Habits

[SnoopySnake]

Anyone else have a snake like this? My white lipped doesn't like eating, but he eats. I have to hang the rat in front of him and just barely move it in order for him to grab it. H'll then grab it, coil it, let it go and leave it. If I leave them overnight, he doesn't eat them. I have to pick it up and re-offer multiple times just to get him to actually eat it. Any suggestions? Quite honestly, it drives me nuts.

[lady_bug87]

Maybe it's not hot enough?

[SnoopySnake]

I was thinking that too but I give them right after they get out of the water, by the time he gets them they're probably around 100 F

[lady_bug87]

That's weird. I have no idea. Maybe space the feedings out more?

[zactay22]

My bci does the same thing occasionally. Food could be to cold, wet food gets cold very quick. He will strike, coil, and then act like the mouse has disappeared. Try drying it off and using heat from a light to warm the food.

[SnoopySnake]

I dry it off and re-warm it every time I offer, its definitely still warm when he gets it cause it's still warm when I take them out. He gets fed once a week but he always seems hungry before I feed him

[lady_bug87]

If you leave him alone with it he leaves it right?

[SnoopySnake]

Normally, yes. Lately I've had to stick a bamboo stick in one of them ventilation holes and push the rat around to get him to come check it out and then eat it

[lady_bug87]

Hmmm. What about his husbandry?

[sophiedufort]

I had the same problem with my Brazilian rainbow boa, tried everything, nothing worked until I offered her live prey. Ever since, she eats as if there's not tomorrow.

[SnoopySnake]

He takes F/T so I'm not going to offer live. His ambient temp is around 80, hot spot 89-90, humidity around 75. He's got two hides and uses them both, but he does come out a lot.

[EL Ziggy]

I agree, if you know your husbandry is on point and he still seems hesitant about eating, try spacing out the feedings. If he's on a 7 day feeding schedule slide it to every 10 days, if its every 10 try 14.

[SnoopySnake]

I've gotta get the next size up in rats and then I'll be spacing out feedings a bit more. Right now he's eating doubles. It took me two hours to get him to eat both...

[EL Ziggy]

LOL. My snakes get 30 minutes. If they don't strike after I've reheated it twice or pick it up after 30 minutes it goes to the next candidate and they wait until the next feeding day. The Iongest I've left a feeder in an enclosure is an hour.

[SnoopySnake]

Lol, I've left them overnight but only ever had one take it the next morning. That would he my reticulated who eats anything and everything. Another time I fed a double to my retic and he didn't eat the second one, I forgot about it and it sat in there under the RHP till that time the next day. Yuck. I knew he'd eat eventually so I just left it.

[Sylphie]

Huh, one of my corns is similiar. She'll grab the mouse, left her on the floor, then she'll lazily poke at mouse from time to time, sometimes moves it around her cage, and start to eat after several hours. I really don't know why she's doing it, and now she's off food for 2 weeks with no reason (maybe that's because of really hot summer we were having there).

[toddnbecka]

I thaw my feeders in a ziploc bag weighed down in a bowl of hot water. I have some large (retired breeder) mice that I got along with my sub-adult DRMB's. They were apparently killed by having their throats cut, and often bleed out a bit when they're thawed. The snakes usually go for those faster than they do freshly killed mice, I figure it's the scent of the blood.

[SnoopySnake]

So I got this guy some large rats (instead of multiple smalls) and he hit it immediately. So I wanna say maybe it was just that he wasn't really seeing the smalls as prey? These larges were also REALLY stinky.

[millertime89]

Possible, I tried feeding my 14ft retic a small rat once to see what would happen and it looked like it didn't even register with her. Plopped a 4 lb rabbit in front of her face and she grabbed it right away though.

[SnoopySnake]

Yeah he had this down within 10 mins, much less stressful haha

[toddnbecka]

Size does matter for pythons, my first baby carpet wouldn't even look at pink mice. I finally offered a live fuzzy and got some response, but it wasn't until I offered a live hopper that I thought was too large for the snake that the first meal was taken. Not so picky now, relatively large or small, live or f/t, as long as it's food it's all good.
Lesson learned; when I brought the 2nd, even smaller baby carpet home I offered a fuzzy, and it was taken immediately. Pythons definitely prefer something big enough to leave a large lump.

[SnoopySnake]

Yet again, giving a big fuss about eating...

[AZretic]

Sometimes I try fresh killed and that usually does the trick

[SnoopySnake]

Week three of not eating.

[Sylphie]

Uhh so sorry to hear that. It's always frustrating when they do this. I assume that you tried everything like scenting, live etc. so I'm just wishing you luck with him.

[SnoopySnake]

Ive only tried f/t for now but next time I'm going to try braining it and if that doesn't work I'll see if I can find a f/t quail or chick. I really don't want to resort to live or fresh killed.

[Sylphie]

I really recommend scenting, works wonders for my non eating corns :D And I know what you mean, I'm always trying everything else before trying live/pre-killed, as I don't want my snakes to decide that they want only live prey :D

[reptiledude987]

Maybe the key last time is that it was a smelly rat. My beaked snakes like their mice to be slightly spoiled. Gross but works

[SnoopySnake]

These last two rats were also pretty smelly, came from the same bag...I'll have to get him out and look him over to make sure nothing is visibly wrong. Just waiting till someone has time to help me.

Edit:Found a shed just now. Didn't even notice he went blue...

[reptiledude987]

These last two rats were also pretty smelly, came from the same bag...I'll have to get him out and look him over to make sure nothing is visibly wrong. Just waiting till someone has time to help me.

Edit:Found a shed just now. Didn't even notice he went blue...

That could very likely have been the issue right there.

[SnoopySnake]

He hasn't eaten since 8-24. Tomorrow night I'm going to try a brained rat and if he still doesn't eat then I'll try a f/t chick. Live is last resort but if I have to I will... Doesn't appear to be losing weight but I'll have to start keeping track.