Removing uneaten food - how long?

[greengriff]

So I fed my two newly acquired boas for the first time. The male ate splendidly, the female didn't touch hers (apart from a cursory tongue flick) and decided to sit on them like eggs instead!

They've been in there for a few hours now, so I'm guessing she's not interested. I know she hasn't eaten for 2 weeks (the previous owner told me when I collected them) which leads to other questions for another thread I guess.

The point of this thread is to ask how long should I leave the corpse in there before concluding that it won't be eaten?

[dave himself]

We feed all our snakes at night, so if someone doesn't eat we remove it in the morning, also I'd be careful when removing the prey item ;)

[EL Ziggy]

Your female is probably still just settling in griff. As long as your husbandry is dialed in I wouldn't be too concerned with her skipping a few meals. Just try her again on her next scheduled feeding day. I usually give most of my snakes a few hours to eat before I remove their food and give it to one of the others but I recently learned that I have to leave the prey item in overnight for my finicky albino carpet python. I hope your girl gets on track soon. Keep us posted.

[greengriff]

Your female is probably still just settling in griff. As long as your husbandry is dialed in I wouldn't be too concerned with her skipping a few meals. Just try her again on her next scheduled feeding day. I usually give most of my snakes a few hours to eat before I remove their food and give it to one of the others but I recently learned that I have to leave the prey item in overnight for my finicky albino carpet python. I hope your girl gets on track soon. Keep us posted.

Thank you. So she's not scheduled to eat again for two weeks. You think it will be ok to leave it until then?

[frankadank]

i was in the sam scenario. my BP didn't eat cause of shedding than the next week she didn't take the mice due to stress i think i caused. i didn't want her to go 3 weeks no meal so i left it in over night. knowing she wasn't going to eat it cuz she liked the action not just a laying down mouse. but believe it or not the next morning it was gone. so over nights always worth a shot

[dave himself]

Thank you. So she's not scheduled to eat again for two weeks. You think it will be ok to leave it until then?

She'll be fine for another 2 weeks mate, just make sure not to handle her and have as little contact with her as you can. I would just do quick water changes and spot clean if she poo,s or pee,s. As Ziggy said she'll be fine and 4 weeks of not eat is nothing to a snake. We have a ball/royal python who once didn't eat for around 5 months

[dannybgoode]

If it's an adult boa it should only be fed every 4 weeks at the most anyway.

Boas have very slow metabolisms and feeding them too frequently can cause organ damage due to fatty deposits building up on their organs.

Colubrids and pythons they are not and nor should they be fed like them. Yes I'm known for my more frugal feeding with all my snakes but whilst I'll agree to differ with people feeding certain species more often I do not agree that boas should even be so frequently fed.

As you're in the UK is highly recommend Vincent Russo's ebook on boas. It's about £2 and whilst I disagree with some of his keeping habits his notes on feeding are about the best I've read.

[greengriff]

Thanks again. The previous owner fed them fortnightly, so I was just continuing his regime. However I will scale back to monthly and start keeping a feeding log to review.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Even my neos only eat every 2 weeks, so I wouldn't worry too much. If they're adults, every 4-6 weeks is most preferable.

Give her some more time to settle in, and she'll likely gobble up her food. In the meantime, just double check temps and humidity and make sure she has enough cover.

[greengriff]

She has a hide, but never goes in (unless she does at night when I don't see) - she spends all of her time towards the hot end of the viv.

[dannybgoode]

She needs at least two hides. One at the warm end kind at the cold and preferably a coupe more in between.

She may want to hide and be warm and at the moment it doesn't sound like she has that option.

[Andy_G]

I won't echo what anyone else said, but I will be more specific for one thing. It's an excellent practice to always let snakes settle in for minimum a week before feeding with almost all species including boas, and this time would've been reset once seperating occured. Leave her right alone for a week.

[akane]

Most of mine eat at night and will leave a rodent sit until night-early morning if fed before then. Best not to bother until lights out and daylight is gone although sometimes if I'm up early like 6-8am they are still active and will eat something despite the sun coming up. I often leave food overnight and remove the next day when I feed everything else around 11am-noon but sometimes depending on source, packaging, and heat proximity things start to smell within hours so if I'm still awake, the rodent is obviously going to go bad, and the snake is obviously not going to eat it I remove it and if it's not too off try to feed it to someone else before wasting it. Some snakes have a stronger feeding response and they'll either take it or never eat it so people know not to bother with those and go to the next one.

[greengriff]

Thank you.