3 month regius that doesnt eat

[Kaiten]

Hi m8s. Im not new to the snake thing, since I have some lampropeltis g calif., but now I got a baby regius that doesnt eat. Who sold her, told me that she was eating pinky mice (so small?) alive and now Im trying to feed her dead. The terrarium has the right temperatures and humidity and she is always exploring (we are in the 2nd week). The last time she was fed was 4 weeks ago and Iv tryed to give some movement to the mouse with tweezeers, but the snake smells it and try to escape from the terrarium in my direction, using the tweezers. The mouse was warm enough and Iv tryed also to just leave it in the hot side in the night, but no success :Wow:. Iv tryed pinky mice and larger and Im worried about the baby...TY. sorry for my bad english.

[Chu'Wuti]

Hi, Kaiten. I can feel your worry, but it is actually quite normal for a young BP to stop eating right after moving to a new home.

Can you tell me more about your vivarium? How do you have it set up? Number of hides, hot zone temps, warm zone temps, cool zone temps, etc. How are you measuring the temp & humidity and where?

There are ways to switch a snake from live to F/T (frozen/thawed), and I'll include some info about that, but first I'd like to suggest that you just leave your new BP alone for the next week--don't handle her, don't try to feed her, and only open her enclosure to change the water as needed; otherwise, just let her relax.

After a week or so--and she won't starve to death in a week--then get a live pinky and a frozen pinky--make the latter a pinky rat. Thaw out the frozen one and put it with the live one in a small dish on top of the snake's enclosure in a warm spot so that the scent of the live one gets on the dead one.

After about 15 minutes, warm up the dead one and heat it's head a little extra. You can do this by putting it in a plastic sandwich bag and running hot water over it.

Offer the F/T pinky. Twitch it to make it seem alive. When you offer it, offer it a little to one side of the BP's head, not directly in front, and don't touch the BP with it. Back it away from the BP as if it is creeping away. This sometimes gets them to strike.

If you are unsuccessful, go ahead and feed the live pinky. Then you have three options--one is to try again the same way with the F/T (you'll have to reheat it). Another is to put the F/T pinky in the BP's mouth as it is swallowing the last of the live one so that the BP just continues swallowing. Another is to just toss the F/T pinky and try again next week.

Sometimes it takes a little time, but it is possible to get them to switch. If this method doesn't work, there are lots of other tricks we can try.

Good luck!

[mykee]

If she was eating live, feed her live. She's telling you something that you're not listening to.
Most issue sthat arise with keepers and their snakes are the keepers not paying enough attention to what the snake wants. It is all about them after all...

[totheend]

I agree with Mykee. Feed her live. And up the food size....a pinky mouse is waaaay to small for a BP.

[Chu'Wuti]

Gosh, Mykee, have you changed your opinion on feeding live from last year? On 3/27/08, Mykee told someone else:

There is no benefit to feeding live prey. The negatives certainly outweighs the positives. As for them eating live prey in Africa, your ball python doesn't live in Africa and should be fed with safety in mind. To trade your ball from live to frozen, you start early and be consistent. There really is no trick to switching. I've tried them all over 8 years and none of them work. The only thing that does work is to not let them get "hooked" on live prey. That means allowing your animal to eat maybe it's first five meals out of the egg live and then going to F/T. You'll hear a bunch, but there all old wives tales. If a snake doesn't want to eat F/T they never will, regardless fo how much fennagling the owner tries.

In general, most people nowadays prefer to switch their snakes to live prey for two reasons: first, it's safer for the snake as the prey gets larger, and second, it's more unpleasant for the prey to be constricted to death than to be humanely killed, making it an ethical issue for some people.

[Kaiten]

Hi. Live prey have a huge number of incovenients: danger of mouse/rat bite, danger of parasites living in the prey (F/T kills almost all of them), its ethicly wrong (in my opinion), and its very difficult to find live prey (in here), etc

I have a rack for the BP with forest bark, with a cave in the warm area and a small tube in the medium. Hot spot: 30ºC. Medium 27ºC, Cold 25º. During the day. Night: Spot: 28ºC, cold area: 23º. I have a chronotermostat that switch day and night temperatures with accuracy. Humidity: 60% by the exoterra thermometer/Higro. I have a huge water plate in the cold area.

I dont handle my snakes too much (maybe 2 times a week) and the racks are in a safe and quiet place.

Gonna try that. TY

[mykee]

Chu; if you get the jist of the above post from a year ago, you'll see that I was referring to a new baby AND from it's first meal. The BP in question has already eaten other food items from it's first owner.
That and I just don't have the time to fuss with my animals, if they want to eat live, they eat live. It seems as keepers our egos get in the way which leads us to the stupid questions like: "my ball hasn't pooped in a week, what do I do" or "my snake never comes out of it's hide". We can try until we're blue in the face, with our anal behavior to make a reptile bend to OUR ways, but it will NEVER happen.

[citysnakes]

Sandy, feeding accidents happens to irresponsible snake keepers making bad or ignorant decisions regarding their practices. feeding live is a safe way to feed your snake. c'mon these things are predators and have evolved to kill their prey very efficiently and have been doing so since the beginning. this whole "feeding live is dangerous" thing started because of bad decisions on the keepers part. i feed some of my balls live as im sure many other responsible keepers and breeders do and we have absolutely no problems.

i recently read a thread where someones snakes ingested some substrate while swalloing a frozen/thawed mouse and it later died. this just goes to show that accidents can happen both ways showing that the fault is on us not the animal.

also i think the only humane way to kill a rodent is with a co2 chamber other than that the next most humane thing to do is to let your ball python constrict and asphyxiate the rodent which is pretty much what a co2 chamber does to them anyways.

[citysnakes]

its ethicly wrong (in my opinion)

ethically wrong? to feed an animal the way it naturally feeds? ethically wrong could be caging up an animal for life and forcing it to behave in an unnatural way.

[Aaron_S]

Most of my snakes eat F/T. I had one that wouldn't but I just got her feeding regularily on live prey and she switched willingly later on. She just likes food now, no matter how it's prepared. I have another ball python that will take pre-killed food. That's what she gets. In time, most snakes will switch. It's more important to keep them eating regularily.

[Chu'Wuti]

Chu; if you get the jist of the above post from a year ago, you'll see that I was referring to a new baby AND from it's first meal. OK, Mykee. You are absolutely correct--each snake is an individual case. You are also absolutely correct that we cannot make a snake or other reptile behave in a way that's contradictory to its nature. I got confused because I thought I remembered you encouraging other keepers to switch their snakes to F/T when possible

Julian, I also agree that feeding live can be done safely. Until 3 years ago, I never fed F/T--I always fed live and never had a snake injured by what was supposed to be its prey because I watched until the prey was consumed or removed the prey from the snake's enclosure.

However, after watching hundreds of mostly-but-not-always-quick snake killings, I have been very happy that the option to feed F/T is available. It is much less messy in many ways, and I prefer it greatly.

At any rate, I was trying to help Kaiten with ideas for making the switch as it appeared that's what Kaiten wants to do. Mykee's response confused me because it seemed to suggest Kaiten shouldn't even try . . . guess I'm just misreading things too much . . .

[mykee]

"I got confused because I thought I remembered you encouraging other keepers to switch their snakes to F/T when possible"
Bingo!!! Tell the lady what she's won, Bob!!

[Chu'Wuti]

ROFL!! OK--now, for a snake-keeper who isn't a breeder like you, who has only one or a few snakes--how much time would you suggest that person work on switching from live to F/T?

For example, it took me 2.5 months to get my BP switched from mice to rats (and he eagerly downed two rat pups last night! Gonna have to increase prey size again! :) ) If I were trying to switch from live to F/T, would you encourage me to try for a couple of months? It would have been far easier for me to attend to what my BP appeared to be telling me--"I don't like rats; I only like mice!" rather than to keep trying and having to throw out good food!

And, Mykee--in all seriousness--thank you so much for the ongoing education you offer. You and Julian and Aaron_S are invaluable!