The Most Frustrating Female EVER

My pickest eater is a 07 CH female. I breed my own ASFs and for the first 6 months she wouldn't even look at them, then one day out of the blue she ate one. Ever since then she has taken an ASF peferfectly (6 times in a row! A miracle!). Up until she took that ASF, she hadn't gained any weight in a year. I would keep trying the ASFs. If you get her to take one, then I bet she will turn around.

Try moving her to a smaller enclosure, giving her two hides and filling the enclosure with crumpled newspaper.

You never know!

i had the exact same situation with a female norm. of mine. since i switched to asf's she now eats two a week. no more throwing rats out for weeks at a time. i'm convinced that asf's are crack for ball pythons

I agree with Northern Regius. I vet a few random animals from my collection each year, and picky eaters are at the top of the list.

A couple of years ago, I vetted 4 of my picky and newer animals, voila--one of the 4, a newer picky albino, turned up with pinworm! The others were clear.

Internal parasites are not ALWAYS the answer to animal that miss meals, but they CAN be--so it's a very good idea to rule that out! The albino changed his ways after worming, and began taking food every time it was offered (though he still only eats live, lol). (We actually wormed the entire collection at that point, just to be on the safe side, but the other picky eaters maintained their picky ways...<lol>).

While contracting internal parasites is rare in a CBB collection, you never know when something might turn up, brought in by a rat or mouse, for example. Live rodents can carry parasites, and random chance can introduce a parasite into a feeder rodent colony. An insect that made its way into a cage and was eaten, for example...

Test 'em if you suspect anything amiss. It never hurts, and just might help.

Remember to keep cleanliness in mind, too. Don't transfer unsterilized equipment between bins/cages, wash your hands often, and NEVER re-use a rodent offered to any suspect animal. Keep new animals in quarantine for at least 90 days, and run a fecal on at least one animal from each group of newcomers from a single source--all of them if you can afford it.

whats so good about ASF's??

Thanks for all the tips, guys! I guess i'll keep trying the ASFs, but she really won't look twice at them as of yet. Live, stunned, p/k or f/t. No matter how warm. :(

She's had three fecals done so far. Two times we did the regular in-house kind at the vet's office, and we had the expensive send-away kind done as well. Far as we can tell, she's clean. Her bloodwork came back perfect, all of her organs seem to be in working order, she's just plain STUBBORN! It sounds horrible, but I almost wish it was something simple like parasites so we could just take care of it and be done with it!

I'm going to put her in a smaller tub with the crumpled newspaper. This truly sounds right up her alley, and I feel a little bit "duh" that I didn't think of it, lol!

Do you guys think that if I can convince her into ASFs that she'll eventually take f/t or p/k? I certainly wouldn't mind getting her onto ASFs as long as she'd just consistently TAKE them!

Smaller cages help most of the time. :D Good luck!

Okay, guys, I fed her in her big tub one last time (She took it, yay!) and moved her to a smaller one with all the crumpled newspaper she can handle! It looks like she's actually hunting in the evening now, so I'm going to wait a few more days until she's fully settled and give it another go! Thanks for the tips and I'll keep you posted!