BP hasn't eaten in almost 6 months

My female BP, I've had her 12 years, and she's never been on a food strike this long. She had a 4 month fast when she had an RI about 7 years ago. She's a rescue, I don't know her full age, but she was about 4 feet long when I got her. (Vet said something about balls only living to 15? When the rest of the internet says that's their life expectancy in the WILD?)

She's been to the vet recently, her mouth and nose are clear (no RI says the vet) and she doesn't have any mites or other symptoms of scarier diseases. Vet said she looks a little "puffy," whatever the heck that means. Her weight is "fine," she doesn't look like she's lost a LOT of mass to the vet, but I can tell she's lost a bit over the course of this. She has no masses from possible impactions, everything seems fine.

The cage temp is at 85 and humidity is 50-60%, sometimes 70 depending on the outside weather.

She's acting completely normal, she'll tool around her enclosure and pop her head around to say hi.

But when it comes to eating... She's on live feed (don't @ me, I've tried F/T) and when we drop a rat for her recently, she'll sniff at it and then just ignore it. She won't S curve or attempt to strike at all. She will seem interested for maybe 5 minutes and then NOTHING. We've tried feeding her once a week with no success.

The only thing that I can think might be the problem is that her eye caps seem dry, but I've increased the humidity over the last few weeks, and she is not in shed. Actually, she hasn't shed in at least 6 weeks. What's the deal?!

BP in captivity have been recorded to live up and passed 40 years so your vet is far off.

As far as not shedding older animals shed less often and older animals that do not eat for long period of time will shed even less.

Not feeding is not unusual for BP in general, older animals can go of feed for various reason, breeding season, catching because they are overfed, husbandry issues etc.

If everything checks out it's just a waiting game really however in your case I would suggest a cool spot of 78/80 and a hot spot of 88.

After that you can make changes such as bedding if you don't already try to provide cypress mulch or coco chip type bedding.

Right now we're using coconut fiber... we're goin to give her a couple days of a break, change her bedding, give her a bath to hopefully get her to shed? .... and try on a large mouse instead of a rat.

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Originally Posted by imbodensplosion

Right now we're using coconut fiber... we're goin to give her a couple days of a break, change her bedding, give her a bath to hopefully get her to shed? .... and try on a large mouse instead of a rat.

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You are not gonna get her to shed by giving her a bath, they are either in shed or they are not and a bath is not gonna be beneficial right now you want to decrease stress not increase it when they are not feeding.

Alternative prey are an option however only if you are willing to feed said prey from now on as the animal could imprint on it, but it is not something I would recommend either.

I would just wait her out. At 12 she's not old but she's not young either, and her metabolism may be slowing a bit so she simply doesn't need to eat as often.