Vacation Brumation

[RAD House]

My wife and I will finally be taking our honeymoon in January. We will be gone for three weeks. This of course causes issues with the snakes feeding schedule. I am trying to decide what is the best option for them. Right now I have two situations I am mulling over. Regardless of what I decide I will have a friend that will be checking in on them weekly to make sure temps are holding and water is full/clean. The first option is leave their thermostats as is and have my friend attempt a feeding during the second week. This worries me for several reasons. First he does not have experience with snakes and I worry it would cause stress for all involved. Second I would hate for a snake to regurg while I am not around to check on them. The second option I am thinking about is doing a mini brumation while I am gone and just having my friend monitor water and temps once a week. By lowering the temps for a few weeks I am thinking the snakes would do fine with out food. Honestly I am fairly certain that most of my snakes could do just fine for this period with out feeding, but I am worried about my tiny garters. They are so small and their metabolism is so fast that I worry I might do some damage by not feeding them for so long. I would love some input from you all for the sake of my snakes.

[AndrewM1217]

If I were you, I would just have your friend come over a few times between now and when you leave and let them feed your snakes so that they can see how to do it. Then, when you leave, you can rest easy knowing your friend is capable of watching your animals

[RAD House]

Also for those with experience with specific species what temp do you recommend lowering each to? I have two garters, a cal king/milksnake hybrid, a black rat snake, and a ball python.

[Derek Roddy]

They'll be fine "as is" for the duration you're gone. As long as they have fresh water every 4 or 5 days or so, they'll be fine with no food for a month.

Just feed a couple extra meals before you're off.

Cheers,
D

[Rattlehead]

If I were you, I would just have your friend come over a few times between now and when you leave and let them feed your snakes so that they can see how to do it. Then, when you leave, you can rest easy knowing your friend is capable of watching your animals

I'm with Andrew. And who knows, maybe your friend will like it and he'll get a snake for himself :D

[Jim Smith]

I'm actually with Derek on this one. As long as they have clean water and their enclosure is spot cleaned, I'd leave them alone. It will certainly not hurt them to miss a couple of meals and you can always catch them up when you get back in town.

I hope you and your misses have a wonderful honeymoon!

[Albert Clark]

Ant, I am definitely on board with Dereks' recommendation with the "as is" for your vacation duration. The clean water and the cleaning of the enclosure is your insurance that the reptiles will be ok w/o their regular feedings. I personally would not drop the temps either. Congrats on the honeymoon! Have fun and relax.

[RAD House]

Yeah I think am leaning towards avoiding feeding during my absence. There is just too much that can happen during feeding time, especially as the two garter snakes live communally. I don't think showing him a few times will prepare him for any sort of emergency situation. Thanks for everyone's input thus far, it is great to have information from experienced keepers.