Winter weight loss

[mfkelly]

Hi Guys,
Two of my boys stopped eating around 11/15 and they still haven't started for the spring. I expect that they will start soon enough. Both boys are betw 3 and 4 yrs. old and they are great eaters, taking f/t med rats. When they are in eating mode. Maybe( poss. het pied ) markers no paper work, has gone from 1105g to 990g. Buddy has gone from 1360g to 1135g. Is their weight loss too much, should I be worried. They seem fine in every other way. Drinking fine, behaving normally.
Mike Kelly

[seeya205]

Do you have any females? Sometimes the smell of females will keep them off feed longer! All you can do is make sure their husbandry is perfect and sit back and wait for them to start. They should start up in the next month!

[Kaorte]

That weight loss doesn't seem too bad really. At that size, they can last quite a while without food.

What kind of setup do you have for them? Do you have pictures?

[mfkelly]

They are housed in a rack in tubs. Temp is set at 92 hot spot. They are currently set up so that the boys are on the bottom and the girls are in the top 1/2. It is a 6 tub rack. My big girl should be dropping her eggs in the next week and other 2 girls aren't big enough to breed yet. My pastel girl is only 1100g and my little Noel is an 11/09 baby, they are both eating fine, it is just the boys. Scent tends to flow downward so maybe I should put the girls low and the boys above them. My mojave male who has been my breeder boy, and hopefully the father of this clutch, has been eating all through the winter only refusing food 2 or 3 times. I think that it is just that these other 2 boys are now full grown adults and in that winter cycle. I have just never weighed them for winter weight loss before. If interested you can see them on my iHerp under mfkelly .
Thanks
Mike Kelly