Stumped

[marisa]

Hi guys.

I have a '03 female cal king who is being a real bugger about feeding.

Here is the details.......born around 7/10/03 and has eaten around 12 meals since birth. Meals 8-around 12 were two pinkies or a small fuzzy. Anyways two months ago or so she stopped eating. She is healthy, alert, very active and hasn;t lost any weight at this point but refuses to eat. I have tried a million tricks with her. Moved her into a tiny safe dark cage, live pinks, scented pinks (scented with both lizard and corn at times just for a stab in the dark try) fuzzies, brained, plain thawed, I have wiggled it in front of her, pissed her off in hopes of getting a feeding, and I have tried leaving her totally 100% alone for two weeks. Nothing has worked as of yet. I have had better luck getting tiny WC's in california to eat over the years when we used to catch them for fun over this CB girl.

At this point a suggestion to brumate her with my adults on Dec 1st has come into play. I have been talking with a few people who regularly brumate their non feeding hatchlings with a large sucess rate for feeding when they come out of it. Any thoughts? (this is just an idea I am tossing around at this point)

Marisa
P.S. duh the essential details: No handling, hot spot of around 83-86, cool side in the 70's, many tiny secure hides, paper towel substrate, housed alone in a rubbermaid type shoebox that is about 8 inches long, 3 inches high and about 6 inches wide.

[marisa]

*shaking head*

Is it just me or do your snakes like you to look like idiots also?

I just went to check on her after posting my message to see how my overnight live pink in cage worked out. And guess what I saw literally five minutes after posting this thread? *dummy*

Marisa

[Vanan]

LOL! Congrats Marisa.

consider it practice for owning a w. hognose lol.

[Linds]

LOL what a lil pain in the a$$

[marisa]

I know. Such a pain. I can't believe her. Nothing at all for two months then its like she heard me typing, and ate the stupid mouse (which has been offered in EXACTLY the same manner many times over the past 8-12 weeks)

*sigh* Snakes may in fact be out to make all us humans their slaves.

Marisa

[Katt]

Don't feel bad. Ask Roy about funny feeders (Candoia babies) As well, some rosy locales/groups, like Mexicans tend to need brumation before eating, this is the same with rubber boas.

[marisa]

I would have definitly been putting her into brumation had she not started eating. I got some excellent advice from someone in the states who uses this often with non-feeders, but I am glad I haven't had to try it out myself.

Marisa

[Simon]

LOL...
o well
at least she ate for you~
nothing to worry now.

But if she didn't eat, burmating might work. As long as you know that she's fat and not skinny. A lot of hatchlings that are non-feeders are put under burmation and then taken back out around a month later and this usually makes them eat. I have tried it myself, Kathy Love does it too so I guess its not that bad of an idea. But I have had lossed some during burmation even when I think that they are fat enough. So it's kind of a last resort thing.

[Simon Sansom]

Yes, snakes can be odd critters at times, can't they?
One thing I learned a long time ago was not to start worrying too much if a snake goes off it's feed. For whatever reason, this just sometimes happens. It can be enough to drive a keeper crazy - but, as Marisa just found out, the "problem" can resolve itself just as quickly as it appeared.

A particularly extreme example in my modest experience...
A very large, wild-caught male Solomon Island Ground Boa (Candoia carinata paulsoni) which would ONLY feed on thawed small chicks. A great snake, fed like a pig for years until he just suddenly went off his food. No obvious signs of any illness. This snake fasted for 13 months and had lost very, very little body weight when he spontaneously
started feeding again. Why? I have no idea.

Like I said, snakes are strange
animals sometimes.

Cheers!

Simon