Hello,
I've had my carpet python for about 2 years. He's about 4 or 5 years old but he was living with a friend for like 2 years straight. Now I have him back and for the first 3 or 4 months I had him he was eating fine, instantly going for like medium rats. That was like August. Now he hasn't eaten anything since then, except I took him to the vet once and we force fed him a mouse. I have tried at least 10 live rats and mice and he didn't eat any of those. The last time he ate a rat it kind of made him bleed on his body near his face from scratching him but he had no complications, it didn't get infected or anything. He also used to try to escape his cage a lot before I made it a new lid. At one point, he had a decent sized infection on his face from scratching his face when he escaped but it didn't go to the bone or anything so I don't think he had osteomyelitis (I'm a medical student so I know some things about infections). Either way, I changed the cage's lid and he was on a course of oral antibiotics and cream antibiotics for like 2 weeks and that's gone now. He just has a small scar on his face now from where it was. No damage to his eyes.
He's been to the vet three times in the past year, both for the infection and because he wasn't eating and the vet can't find anything wrong with him. I note he still sometimes acts like he wants to escape the cage, however, he definitely can't and now there are no edges on which he can scratch himself. I feel like he isn't comfortable in the cage for a reason I cannot figure out and that's why he isn't eating. I do have a cat and dog and I'm wondering if he is smelling them and thinking they're predators and it's freaking him out. I have cleaned his cage very thoroughly and replaced the flooring and still he did not eat. I also made a makeshift cardboard cage and put him in a closet where the animals don't go for 24 hours in case it was a smell issue and that also didn't help. Idk what else to do at this point and I'm going insane worrying he's gonna starve himself to death.
I need tips on a next sssssssssstep (snake pun). Thanks! I'm including pics of him in his enclosure.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Us...5atuPNkBaoyVXB
-Cody