Too small prey item?

Our w/c adult (or ltc adult, whichever term you prefer) is currently fasting. She fasted last winter too. Nothing we did last winter worked (temp adjustments, lighting adjustments, no handling, different sized prey, dancing around the full moon chanting and making offerings...nada). She only lost 100 grams over a whole winter though. Saoirse is our only snake though that grew up wild and came into the pet trade as an adult so we consider her the "oddball" of the collection.

As far as feeding weanling rats to an 850 gram snake I do it all the time. We have a few females in that range (600 to 900 grams) and most of them eat newly weaned rats. One of our females (Rionnach....900 grams) will likely eat wean rats a long time as she's extremely, extremely picky about prey size and will refuse to eat anything bigger than a chubby wean rat. You can always feed two if you think you need to at some point as the snake grows and then eventually move up to a small.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Our w/c adult (or ltc adult, whichever term you prefer) is currently fasting. She fasted last winter too. Nothing we did last winter worked (temp adjustments, lighting adjustments, no handling, different sized prey, dancing around the full moon chanting and making offerings...nada). She only lost 100 grams over a whole winter though. Saoirse is our only snake though that grew up wild and came into the pet trade as an adult so we consider her the "oddball" of the collection.

As far as feeding weanling rats to an 850 gram snake I do it all the time. We have a few females in that range (600 to 900 grams) and most of them eat newly weaned rats. One of our females (Rionnach....900 grams) will likely eat wean rats a long time as she's extremely, extremely picky about prey size and will refuse to eat anything bigger than a chubby wean rat. You can always feed two if you think you need to at some point as the snake grows and then eventually move up to a small.

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Thanks for the info Jo,

Currently Autumn's been off feed for about 6 weeks and has lost about 30g and Anubus has been off for about 4 weeks and has lost about 20g. Lustro has been eating rat pups like they're going out of style, I guess I'll take 1 of 3 as opposed to none of 3.

Thanks for all the replies everyone

Try offering the fasting ones a nice juicy, wiggling fuzzy. For some reason we've found that those are pretty hard to resist for a snake and can pop one out of a fast. You can leave a fuzzie in there overnight and see how it goes. If the snake doesn't eat it, it normally will be fine in the morning and you can just pop it back in with it's mother.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Try offering the fasting ones a nice juicy, wiggling fuzzy. For some reason we've found that those are pretty hard to resist for a snake and can pop one out of a fast. You can leave a fuzzie in there overnight and see how it goes. If the snake doesn't eat it, it normally will be fine in the morning and you can just pop it back in with it's mother.

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If only I raised my own feed :(

Its hard to find live rat pups in my area but I'll give it a search

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Originally Posted by Spaniard

If only I raised my own feed :(

Its hard to find live rat pups in my area but I'll give it a search

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Oh yep darn sorry forgot you don't have a rat colony handy. Try calling around to your local decent pet stores, some do breed in the back room. Also see if you have any herp clubs around. Some of their members may have an active breeder/feeder rat colony. I sell my spares to another BPNet member when I have them...handy for me, handy for him. :)

If all else fails...well just pack up and move to Toledo, OH. I have 5 big litters of various aged nursing baby rats right now and two more due soon (that reminds me...I need more maternity setups real soon!).

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Oh yep darn sorry forgot you don't have a rat colony handy. Try calling around to your local decent pet stores, some do breed in the back room. Also see if you have any herp clubs around. Some of their members may have an active breeder/feeder rat colony. I sell my spares to another BPNet member when I have them...handy for me, handy for him. :)

If all else fails...well just pack up and move to Toledo, OH. I have 5 big litters of various aged nursing baby rats right now and two more due soon (that reminds me...I need more maternity setups real soon!).

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Thanks Jo,

I'll keep that in mind if I ever decide to pack up my bags and hit the road. I'm going to try looking around this weekend. I'm sure Lustro will gobble up anything the other two won't eat. Little pig he is.