Any help welcome

I handle ALL of mind before, during, and after chow. The after is putting them back in their homes.

You don't have to take her out to feed her. Some people do, some people don't. I don't.

You can gently lift her after she's done swallowing the prey. "Handling" after feeding is more about more extensive handling than just lifting her into her enclosure from the feeding bin.

There's nothing wrong with being new. We were all new once. The grand thing is how you are researching and checking into everything instead of assuming you know everything or doing the bare minimum of "tank-water" and hoping.

thats cool, thank you so much......im pretty siked about my first feed just wanted make sure i could get her from the bin back into the viv.

you have been really informative and i will post back and let you know how i get on with feed tomorrow and post pics of my tank when its all finished on monday :D

Thanks For All The Info :)

Hi,

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5148/...94803633_z.jpg

I appologise if this has been covered but there is tape holding a probe at the top of the pic.

Tape inside the enclosure is a bad idea - the snake will end up stuck to it eventually.

And what is that probe for?

It is miles away from anywhere the snake will be spending its time so I can't see how it can be doing anything useful?


dr del

it was just put there to measure the air temperature, this was set up about a week before the snake went into the viv.....plus i had no hygrometer, thanks for the advice though if i would have left it there it would have been removed before she went into it.

:) much obliged :banana:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rick McDowell

ooo thats what i wanted to ask lol, im giving her first feed this sunday, Im feeding her in a tub which i got pretty cheap from a craft shop (its been cleaned and steralised). how do i get her from the feeding tub back into the viv as i read i cant handel her after a feed?

Many Thanks :salute:

sorry the bulb is now covered, got a cover for it today after seeing a snake burn on the internet, forgot to mention in previous post (I FEEL LIKE SUCH A NOOB) lol :/

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Personally, I am still feeding out of the enclosure. Next feeding, I'm probably going to feed in his tank, but I had the same question when I first fed. The first feeding is always exciting. Luckily, my buddy eats like a champ. The first time, I picked him up to put him back, but he seemed a pit persnickety when I touched him. What I do now is to tilt my other enclosure into his viv, and he generally crawls out and into his hide to digest. After eating, they generally want nothing more than to curl up under a heat lamp and go into a thanksgiving-like food coma. My last snake was a corn and he ended up starving his young self to death :( Brought him to a vet, but we couldn't figure out what the deal was. The good vibe from his appetite was exactly what I needed to kickstart my new BP adventure. Good luck with the feed!

ok so just tried my first feed and it didnt go so well :(, thawed the fuzzy, weighed my snake and measured her length. Put the scent of the fuzzy round the feeding bin, popped her in and held the fuzzy about 6 inches from her nose, she had her tongue going which got me excited as i thought she was going to strike (but she never did).

she just sat in the feeding bin in a ball so after about 10 mins i just popped her back into her enclosure, and she retreated straight for her hide. which kinda tells me she dont wanna be disturbed, im not dis-heartened as i know they can be fussy eaters lol.

Im gonna leave her for a couple of days (i think thats the best thing to do and just keep handeling her regularly, unless anyone can suggest anything else??

Thanks :banana:

Hi,

Stop feeding her outside her enclosure and heat the head of the prey with a hair drier just before offering it. And fuzzy's are probably a bit small unless you mean rat fuzzies.

Try a mouse hopper and thaw it slowly near the cage so that the pre-scenting is a long process.


dr del

Ditto on the heating the prey up. If you merely thawed it, then it's not warm enough to give off a heat signature to attract her interest.

Also, doing a proper Zombie Rat Dance is important. You can't be too aggressive because it'll scare the snake, but you don't want to simply have it laying there either. It takes practice to puppet a dead prey properly. It also takes a lot of patience. A lot.

You might want to not handle her so much before feeding. Basically you did a lot of stressful handling then asked the snake to eat a cooled prey item in a new situation(the feeding bin). Snakes don't want to eat if they are not comfortable about the surroundings because they are very vulnerable while they are swallowing prey. The entire situation is still kind of new to her so she's still settling in and trying to get used to everything. Remember they have a brain the size of a split pea, so they can't reason out things much at all.

I'm sure you'll have her eating really quickly! You seem patient and understanding of her needs. With a few adjustments, you'll have her gobbling up prey in no time at all.

Thanks for the info guys, i made sure she was Pretty comfortable before offering the prey to her, i also heated the head with a hairdryer. But she still didnt seem interested in it, ive decided im going to wait till i see her actually hunting for prey around her viv before offering her food, she has only been in her new enclosure for a week so it may have been too soon to offer her food. As for the handling everything is fine she gets into a tight ball and after a couple of seconds is roaming round my hands and checking me out lol.....i decided to remove the heatlamp as i found it was drying out the humidity in The viv, ive also added some sphagnum moss to her hide as ive read its a good way to keep the humidity up and can also help when it comes time to shed, im still waiting on my digital hygrometer because the dial ones are a pain :mad:. I have two in the tank and they both give me different readings so this is why im keeping a close eye on the temperature.

If there is anything im doing wrong here input would be greatly welcomed as your info thus far has been awesome :D