Hi all!

Just wanted to pick everyone’s brains about my Lestat’s situation. Before I do…lemme give you a run down of who I am and what I know etc.

My 10 yr. old daughter had been asking for a snake for over a year and long story short we finally caved after she put up ½ the $ for one plus his set up etc. We met with Ron at North Texas Reptile Breeders (awesome breeder btw) and he sold us a normal little guy which my daughter named Aussie. Ron does feed all his BP’s live, but we thought we’d give frozen a try since we heard so much about it being better and safer. Aussie wants nothing to do with the frozen stuff and has no problems striking, coiling, and consuming his live dinner pretty quickly. So…we’ve left him on that & see no reason to change it.

Aussie has been an awesome addition to our family (hence he’s usually called Awesome Aussie around the house) of 2 dogs, 5 cats, 1 red eared slider, and a couple dozen fish. BUT I’ve also learned that we have A LOT to learn about keeping BP’s. It’s fun learning though. Except for trying to keep the humidity up in his tank (yes, it’s glass), him having a couple bad sheds, WHICH I watched a youtube video on shed assisting that was really helpful and I’m proud to say we both made it through that process w/flying colors…I was sooooo nervous at first because I didn’t wanna hurt him.

Because of Aussie, I caught the bug and had to have one of my own. We went back to Ron at NTRB and my BF bought me a beautiful baby boy Lemon Pastel…Lestat!

Now…I know I’m getting long winded here, but I just wanted everyone to know that I am a new BP owner, but I’m learning a lot everyday. There’s a ton of helpful information on here and everyone seems really helpful, but I’m just terrified of being criticized and all due to my lack of knowledge, so I’m really not into hearing all that.

So…back to the main reason I’m wanting to pick everyone’s brains. Lestat won’t eat! I’m not really really worried about it yet because I hear BP’s can go quite a while w/out eating, but I’m getting there. He hatched May 17th…Ron always makes sure they’re eating well before letting them go to their new homes. I took him home June 7th and was told he ate a couple fuzzies the day before, which would be the 6th. We feed Aussie once a week, so will feed Lestat on the same schedule. We let Lestat settle in and acclimate to his new home and he’s been totally cool when we’ve handled him, a little spazzier than Aussie, but probably cause he’s so young. When the next feeding day rolled around, the 16th (would make it 10 days since he ate last) we thought we’d try him on a very small mouse. I promise it wasn’t bigger than the widest part of his body. His first strike he missed and his dinner ran away. He tried again a few minutes later and struck at the side of the mouse’s body and started constricting, but wasn’t quick enough and the mouse started to bite him. With no time to waste being a little more humane about it, my BF quickly reached in and thumped the mouse in the head (I think it killed him) Lestat freaked out and slithered away. We tried for a few more minutes to get him to eat the mouse, but it was a no go. He was hardly wounded. When I went to go clean him up and put some Neosporin on his bite you could hardly tell anything was there. He seemed really wound up though, so I put him away to chill out from the traumatic events. I handled him regularly since then…he’s not seemed aggressive or anything, but I kept thinking to myself “He has got to be soooo hungry!” Well, the next feeding day came around, Mon. the 23rd. We didn’t want a repeat of the last episode and had decided maybe he wasn’t ready for a small mouse yet, so we thought we’d get a frozen fuzzy. I put it in a baggy, ran it under hot water til it thawed out, shot it w/the hair dryer to warm it up, used tongs to make it scoot around on the floor to entice Lestat…NOPE! He was scared and kept balling up…when we’d put it down and walk away for a few minutes to give him some privacy maybe? He just slithered around it and even over it, but acted like nothing was there.

I’m soooo frustrated! & getting on the verge of really really worrying. It’s now been almost 3 weeks since he ate last…thinking about trying to get a live fuzzy…I’m so sorry to everyone that took the time to read this whole thing for it being so long, but any advice would be appreciated.

Angie