You know what's nice?

When your female mouser becomes a ratter.

I have a female OD Enchi Pastel het G-Stripe that I have been trying to grow up since I picked her up in September 2017. Not only was she a mouser, but oddly enough she wouldn't eat live. Even eating frozen thawed, I couldn't give them directly to her. Instead, I'd have to lay them in her tub and leave her alone. Guess how long it took me to figure that out?

So about 6 weeks ago she just starts refusing them and then went into shed. She is only 400 grams so it wasn't like she hit the wall or anything, but it had been a solid month of her not eating. I have a few snakes that only eat live and one of them refused a weanling because they were in shed. Just out of curiosity, I put it in the mouser girl's tub. Bamm!!! She nailed it and ate. Thinking it could just be a fluke, I let her go for about 10 days and tried it again. Whammo!!! Holy Success Batman. Two rats in a row. I could have said Jinkies, but I didn't want to mix my childhood shows up, and that is a Scooby Doo reference. Hopefully, now she can start putting some size on her so I can work her into my plans. She is quite a looker.

Anyways, feel free to share some of your stories where you had a nice, unexpected experience. BP related or not is up to you, just as long as it was something that gave you some joy.

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

When your female mouser becomes a ratter.

I have a female OD Enchi Pastel het G-Stripe that I have been trying to grow up since I picked her up in September 2017. Not only was she a mouser, but oddly enough she wouldn't eat live. Even eating frozen thawed, I couldn't give them directly to her. Instead, I'd have to lay them in her tub and leave her alone. Guess how long it took me to figure that out?

So about 6 weeks ago she just starts refusing them and then went into shed. She is only 400 grams so it wasn't like she hit the wall or anything, but it had been a solid month of her not eating. I have a few snakes that only eat live and one of them refused a weanling because they were in shed. Just out of curiosity, I put it in the mouser girl's tub. Bamm!!! She nailed it and ate. Thinking it could just be a fluke, I let her go for about 10 days and tried it again. Whammo!!! Holy Success Batman. Two rats in a row. I could have said Jinkies, but I didn't want to mix my childhood shows up, and that is a Scooby Doo reference. Hopefully, now she can start putting some size on her so I can work her into my plans. She is quite a looker.

Anyways, feel free to share some of your stories where you had a nice, unexpected experience. BP related or not is up to you, just as long as it was something that gave you some joy.

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isn't 500 grams a little light for a year and a half female? assuming you picked her up in sep 2017 as a hatchling.

When my black pastel pinstripe was younger, he was a difficult eater, wanted the mouse layed down in front of his hide. Never wanted anything to do with dancing mice. If I was lucky, it was gone by morning. One day I was putting the mouse in there and bam (I pooped, I mean jumped) he struck hard and fast. After that, he was officially a striker. He’s around five years old now and around 1500 grams.

Buttercup, my albino male bp, was a confirmed mouser for all the years I’ve had him....purchased as a hatchling in 2015. He would regularly eat 2 mice per feeding when he got older, but refused any rats. When I purchased Sabrina and Selene, I ordered weanling rats to match what they had been feeding on previously. Just in the last couple of months, I tried feeding him one of these to Buttercup and he tackled it and ate it. I am ecstatic...he’s finally putting on more size and weight, reaching 509 grams as of December. He’s the smallest of my adult/subadult bps, but I don’t plan on trying to get him to grow but so fast now that he’s switched. Slow and steady is the plan, but it will be easier with rats instead of mice.

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Originally Posted by ShawarmaPoutine

isn't 500 grams a little light for a year and a half female? assuming you picked her up in sep 2017 as a hatchling.

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Yes, she is small for her age. That has to do with her feeding on mice and not eating consistently.She wouldn't necessarily eat every week and I couldn't get her to eat two in a row. BPs are interesting in that their size is is not based on their age, unless they are a typical feeder. But if they don't take in a lot of calories, their body doesn't grow. That said, my girl looks plenty fat. She isn't at all malnourished looking. She is just small for her age. If you read Dianne's post above, her 2015 boy just reached 509 grams. He's almost four years old.

I have another female that is four years old and under 1200 grams. I stopped tracking because it was driving me nuts, but I know at one point she had eaten only 17 times in 73 weeks. I have tried everything from live to frozen thawed, Mice , Rats, and ASFs. She is just a finicky eater and until I breed her probably always will be.

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

Yes, she is small for her age. That has to do with her feeding on mice and not eating consistently.She wouldn't necessarily eat every week and I couldn't get her to eat two in a row. BPs are interesting in that their size is is not based on their age, unless they are a typical feeder. But if they don't take in a lot of calories, their body doesn't grow. That said, my girl looks plenty fat. She isn't at all malnourished looking. She is just small for her age. If you read Dianne's post above, her 2015 boy just reached 509 grams. He's almost four years old.

I have another female that is four years old and under 1200 grams. I stopped tracking because it was driving me nuts, but I know at one point she had eaten only 17 times in 73 weeks. I have tried everything from live to frozen thawed, Mice , Rats, and ASFs. She is just a finicky eater and until I breed her probably always will be.

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I dropped my tracking to every two months because I like to see some change. ;) As long as they are consistently eating, you will see the growth. They don’t all grow fast, whether that is because they were small hatchlings, getting a late start feeding, being a mouser, or not eating consistently....or any combination of those. My lemon blast, Belle, is another example. She’s a July 2018 hatchling that was late to start feeding, and didn’t feed consistently. She’s just now hit 189 grams, compared to Piper who is the same age at 253 grams, and Cuervo who is 2 months younger than either of them and 192 grams.

Since I started with boas, I was used to snakes that ate consistently all the time. My first bp (that I still have) ate exceedingly well for the first couple of years because he had been malnourished by the prior owner. Then he started acting like a typical adult male bp. :rolleyes: It really freaked me out the first time he went months without eating, until I learned it wasn’t unheard of with them. Now if one goes off feed, I watch their weight and offer every 2-3 weeks depending on age. While they are some of the most docile snakes to own, they aren’t the easiest to keep without some angst for their owners.

I got an Enchi Pastel Girl in December '17, she weighed 1743 grams when I got her, in September' 18, she had not eaten a single meal and dropped weight to 1346 grams. In desperation I fed her an ASF which she demolished, a week later she finished another ASF and a small rat. Since then she eats regularly, either ASF or Rats, whatever is given to her. Her weight as at yesterday is 1466 grams.


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Congrats riditmars! It’s so nice when they switch and make your life easier. :)