hightend aggression

[sookieball]

do females tend to go on more aggressive feeding habbits during or before breeding season?

i started putting my male pastel in with my female normal these past few weeks and she's not aggressive to him, actually cuddles up with him alot :-)
but she is in a constant strike possition when someone walks by and she just ate 6 lg mice a couple days ago and i know if i put another one in she'll eat, she normally only is willing to eat about 4 max.

is it normal for your girls to want to eat more before or during breeding?
or is she getting ready to ovulate, or developing follicles maybe? maybe she is just wanting to put more weight on TO breed?
should i offer food or keep her on her normal feeding cycle since its a larger amount of mice a weel?


any input would be helpful.

[dr del]

Hi,

I know mine get ravenous when they are getting ready to breed.

This might be a good time to try to switch her over to small rats if you want. Six mice is a lot of offerings after all.


dr del

[Quiet Tempest]

I've noticed most of mine act as if every meal is their last before breeding season is in full swing. Aggressive behavior, though, varies from individual to individual. Mine have never become really aggressive despite breeding or egg laying but I've seen videos of some girls who would happily take someone's face off. lol

I'm with Dr Del on the transition to rats. I've got a jungle carpet python that is a rat-o-phobe and it gets expensive feeding him so many mice at a sitting, even after buying them directly from a breeder. I've only tricked him into eating a rat twice in the 10+ years we've had him. If your girl has a good appetite, I'd try switching to rats and save yourself some trouble later on.

[sookieball]

Well thanks to both of u guys for the input! :-P

I don't think she'll take it but your right, maybe now is a good time to try and switch her back to rats. Stunned not prekilled or f/t though last bite was pretty severe and she (except lately) is a pretty slow stalk-n-kill machine and she never eats from tongs and she did last feeding which is a BIG SURPRISE since that only happened once in the time I've owned her.

And well she isn't aggressive tirades me I can still handle her and toss her round n stuff :-)

She just knows when I am going to feed her and she knows when my 2010 little girls gonna eat too and usually when one eats they all eat

[CeeJay]

I usually just dangle a rat near her hide to get her attention then lay it down on the other side of the tank. She'll take her time and eat within a half hour.

During breeding sessions and right before she went off feed she was more aggressive. I dangled the rat. She came right out and snatched it from the tongs.

[rj1204]

This is my first breeding season too and my girls are starting to act weird. I live in Texas and its still hot so I don't know how they really know the season is coming......the only thing is last week it rained for 6-7 days straight so the ac actually kept the house a few degrees cooler then usual and humidity got up real high.

One of my girls came at the rat super aggressive, missed and knocked it out of my tongs, and then came out of her tub lunging at me over and over and over. I tried to push her back in with my tongs and she struck it. She is usually never like this. On the other hand, my 3500g "garbage disposal" didn't eat last week and this week, she struck the rat and let it sit for 30 minutes, then ate it (no constricting at all). My girls have just been weird the last week or two.