Should I be concerned? 3 months no meals!

OK so I have a 2008 Spider female that I bred to my male Lesser-Pastel on August 4th. At that point in time she was eating well and weighed in at 1357g. Since then she continued to eat one or two ASF's once a week until September 27th. She has not eaten since that point in time. For a while she looked like she was building but at this point shes just looking thinner. Yesterday she shed(her 4th since the pairing) Now I'm just wondering is she just being a picky BP or should I consider force feeding? Any imput is greatly appriciated. Thanks in advance.

im a lil new so hate me if im wrong but from what ive heard as long as they are not loseing alot of weight then dont worry to much because they can go for many months without eating..ive heard of around a year sometimes

Justin

I might be way off mark, but is it possible that she was gravid, the eggs became inviable, and she is still retaining the slugs, or some type of infection. I mean she's off feed, losing weight, and still shedding that quick. I would have her checked out for any possible internal issues before attempting a force feed...

Force feeding anything other than a problematic hatchling should never be done in my view. In all likelyhood she didn't take and is now off feed, don't worry she is a big girl at that weight she should be fine just watch her.

Droid!!!! yEE

Never force feed an adult...

Yeah, if she might have eggs, good or bad in her, force feeding would not be good. Take that one to a vet. Try to find a place that can ultrasound, perhaps? If she is stopped up with something, be it eggs or impaction, she's not eating for a good reason!

As long as your husbandry is right, she is fine. Just keep trying to feed her weekly. She will eat when she is ready. She may be gravid, which could be why she isn't eating.

Like others have said, my first thought is that she could be gravid. It's pretty normal for females to stop eating once they are gravid. My girl didn't eat from February to the first week of July 2 days after she laid her eggs. It's nerve racking, but it's pretty common. She started at 2,000 grams and lost almost half of her body weight after laying, but she gained all of it back and then some!

I wouldn't force feed her since you have been breeding her and it's only been three months (and she has a lot of weight on her). There are rare cases in which you need to force feed adults. If they go six+ months and have clearly lost a LOT of weight, that's when I would consider assist feeding, but the odds of that happening are pretty low.

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Originally Posted by Emilio

Force feeding anything other than a problematic hatchling should never be done in my view. In all likelyhood she didn't take and is now off feed, don't worry she is a big girl at that weight she should be fine just watch her.

Droid!!!! yEE

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This is exactly what I'm thinking happened. I keep her 88 degrees in my rack like my other snakes that are all healthy and eating. I thought she was looking pretty big for a while but at this point I'm 95% sure she didnt take. So what is a common time period for a female that didnt take and is off feed to start eating again?

In my experiance 3 or 4 months I checked my records the last time this happened to me the fast was 4 months.

Droid!!!! yEE