Over two weeks and still no feed.

2 weeks isn't bad... Give her some time to settle in... My BP hates rats, and loves mice. Have you only offered rats?

Sounds like she's a nice 04 of decent size whose used to weanling size rats so personally I'd just stick with what she knows and not switch up things on her. She's adjusting enough to a new home, don't complicate it with different prey and so forth.

I'd suggest you offer her a weanling rat every week, same day, in the evening after dark, pre-scent the area, make sure things are peaceful and quiet and pop the rat into her enclosure as far away from her as possible (you feed live right?).

Double check your husbandry and the area where her enclosure is in your home. Are her temps and humidity stable and in the correct range? Is the area where she lives pretty high traffic or a lot of vibrations from music, etc. When you feed her do you monitor the live feed but not hover directly over her? Check back with the person you got her from and ask them exactly, step by step how she's normally fed - manner, time of day, etc. Sometimes it's just a matter of a little tweak here or there to get them back to their normal feeding habits.

From my own admittedly limited experience (first snake I have owned) two weeks isn't long at all. According to the previous owner she ate two smallish mice about every ten days, but it was close to seven weeks after we got her before she showed any interest in feeding at all (I attempted to feed her about twice a week), but today (just a few minutes ago, she snapped up three (pathetically small) white feeders one after another, in broad daylight. I am not certain if the previous owner was mistaken about the last time she ate, or if he was just full of spit, but I put one mouse in, she struck and ate it within a minute, so I gave her another (same thing happened) so I tried for a third (again, immediately she struck and ate it.... After the third, she went into her hide and is apparently digesting. (probably a dumb question, but multiple prey items is okay, right?)

She looked happy, in any case.

Multiple prey items are fine, especially if they are small mice but you don't want to overdo it. Really depends on your snake's size. We have and 05 female here that regularily takes 3 mice per week and an 05 who takes 2 (they are generally quite good size adult mice). The 3 mouse eater has always been quite a bit bigger than the 2 mouse eater one so requires that bit more prey volume to be content. We have an 06 mouse eater whose quite happy on one good sized adult per week.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Multiple prey items are fine, especially if they are small mice but you don't want to overdo it. Really depends on your snake's size. We have and 05 female here that regularily takes 3 mice per week and an 05 who takes 2 (they are generally quite good size adult mice). The 3 mouse eater has always been quite a bit bigger than the 2 mouse eater one so requires that bit more prey volume to be content. We have an 06 mouse eater whose quite happy on one good sized adult per week.

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Yet again, if the information from the previous owner is correct, she is an 05 female (according to him, she won't eat rats as they are too aggressive) but I had one other total noob type question. Considering she just ate, how long is it a good idea to wait after feeding to handle her? Speaking personally, I like my food to digest, go have an after dinner smoke, and I don't want to be bothered for at least an hour, but I ain't a BP either. Thanks in advance for the assistance.

Hi,

We generally recomend not handling for 2 days after they eat to allow them to, as you said, digest dinner.:)


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