Yesterday was feeding day and I noticed a couple of strange happenings with mine.
My rainbow is in shed...again. And she just shed a little over a week ago. It wasn't the best shed in the world (I'm still having some humidity issues with her due to our weather...cold/hot/cold/hot) but it was decent. I know snakes will shed alot more if they have scale issues like burns, rot, etc. I checked her over really well and didn't notice anything abnormal. She looks really healthy despite fighting humidity with her. Maybe she's just having a growth spurt?
My older royal, who didn't want to eat for me last week, didn't act interested in his food either. Sometimes if I tease my snakes with their food, they'll become interested and strike it. He didn't act interested, nor did he strike, but he wrapped it a couple of times and looked at me like, üh....you want me to eat?" He wouldn't let it go so I left him alone with it and 10 minutes later the rat was gone. I've never seen one do that before.
My problem eater burm...well, she ate a chick and as usual, I piggy backed her a rat behind it. I had another animal that didn't want her second offering so I thought I'd give it to my little burm since it was a small adult mouse (I usually give extra to my other burm but this one could use the extra food). She nosed it for a minute and instead of striking and coiling, she started eating it right off the tongs! lol I haven't seen her do that one before either.
One of my dumerils snatched her rat off the tongs so hard she left the tail IN the tongs!
BTW, these are large adult rats. Never had that happen before either. It was weird standing there holding a rat tail (it was the whole thing...even the inside part) with no rat.
I'm curious as to why my rainbow went into shed so quickly and if it may be something in her husbandry or feeding I need to correct? I feed her weekly (except in shed, she won't eat) one small adult live mouse. It's what the breeder (Jeff Clark) told me to feed her. We've had her for about 2 1/2 months now and she's grown in length, but is still slender so her food still leaves a nice size food bump on her.
Also, my dumerils are adopted. They were rescued by another keeper but he couldn't keep them permanently so I adopted them. I have no clue of their exact age but both are close to 5 ft long and have a nice size girth to them now as they came to me a little on the skinny side. Should I continue to feed them weekly or every 10-14 days now that they've gotten some size to them. I've heard they have a very slow metabolism and I don't want to overfeed them. I wouldn't mind having one like Black Betty but I'd rather it be natural instead of over feeding. Both are on large adult rats and one barely leaves a food bump.
I'd love to hear from any rainbow or dumerils keepers about my concerns with my animals.
Thanks!
P.S. I just threw in the stories about the royal, the rat tail, and the burm because I thought they were funny
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