New BP owner with a alot of feeding problems!

I'm joining this site because I was on another one that told me I was a bad person for taking my snake to the vet. I got tired of everyone telling me that I didn't know what I was doing and taking her to the vet would just make everything worse. :mad:

I've never had a snake before, and know almost nothing about them. I got my little girl (a few months old) from a flea market, more or less. I took her to the vet because I haven't been able to feed her and she started looking quite awful. She (not sure if she's really a she) was getting so skinny that she had lines down both sides of her body.

When I took her to the vet he was very worried about her and said her condition warrented force feeding. He spent half an hour with me just looking over the snake and telling me everything he could. She weighed 52 grams and was slightly dehydrated.

Since then I have warmed the tank more, 97-87-80 degrees across the tank. I have two hides, and the humidity is around 60%.

I force fed her 2 times and now it's been a week since she last ate and I would like her to eat on her own.

I've tried a lot of feeding tricks, but so far I've not been able to get my hands on live pinkies/hoppers.

How exactly are you force feeding her and what size prey or even syringe??

Also, do you have a scale so you can regularly weigh her?

Was a fecal performed at the clinic, or even bloodwork (although I would be hesitant to do bloodwork if the vet is not familiar)?

Are hides present on both the warm and cool end?

What are you offering her as prey? Have you tried a variety of rodents, including various colors? What time of day are you feeding her? Try at night. There are a ton of feeding tricks out there but you need to get an appropirately sized prey item. A several day old pinkie rat or a two week old mouse would be an ideal prey item to leave in a paper bag with her for several hours or even all night. I wouldnt try the paper bag trick every week if it doesnt work the first time, mix it up. Do not leave any prey in her cage that could possibly attack her.

Do not offer food more than once a week.

These are resilient animals unless some disease process is active.

Do not handle her unless absolutely necessary.

How big is your cage?

Pics would be nice

Taking an animal to a vet is never a bad thing, it could end badly if your vet isn't sure of what they are doing. Not every vet is a reptile specialist, but im sure most vets can tell a healthy animal from a sick one, even if they dont know what to do to treat it.

If you tell us a little about her and your set up im sure that some of the awesome people on this site will be able to give you some advice and get her feeding.

1. how old is the snake, what is their weight, etc (if you dont know how much she weighs, you should get a digital kitchen scale immediately. you can find them at walmart, target, and stores of that nature). keep track of her weight, weigh her once a week and see if she is gaining or loosing significantly.

2. get a fecal float done. take a fecal sample of hers to the vet and have them test it for parasites. this is generally inexpensive and can be done while you wait. this will tell you if she has any internal buggies that need to be taken care of.

3. tell us about your set up. What type of enclosure (glass, plastic, etc). how are you heating it? (UTH, human heating pad, etc) how is your heating being controlled? (thermostats are as necessary as the animal is in the system), what kind of hides do you have, whats the humidity, where is her enclosure located? (is it a noisy area or is it calm and dark).

4. where did you get her from? what did the place say she was eating and when was the last time she ate it? Did a sign near her cage say CBB, CH, WC or any of those letters?

the answers to those questions will help.

Also, i'd keep the temperature of her encloure from 90-94 on the warm side and 80-84 on the cool side. she dosent need any hotter. make sure the humidity is between 50 and 60%.