Henry the bee is driving me crazy!!!!

Little bee terd!!!!!! He has been so passive about eating lately and is truly driving me nutso! He has always been such a fierce eater...imagine trash can...and that would be him. Well he has hit 600 grams now and is finiky.

Here is what he has been doing......first of all he will not bite and coil lately. We have to pre-kill it and lay it in his tub. Then after about 20 minutes he has to lay on it....rub on it...."love" on it for a while. Eventually he will finally eat it. Yesterday he layed his head on it for 30 minutes before he finally ate it.

His husbandry is spot on....but I am wondering if I should move him into a rack without the girls? Maybe the girls are throwing him a little off??? He is at the size that he could get a little action....but the girls are not at all big enough yet.

I don't know....thoughts??

Maybe This my newbness showing but is it a problem as long as he eats it? I mean I have leave my girl completely alone for a few hours before she'll eat f/t prey on her own left in the cage.


Moving him might not hurt if you can I guess. I dunno. I wish I could make my girl strike. Or read her mind that might help to.

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Originally Posted by Seru1

Maybe This my newbness showing but is it a problem as long as he eats it? I mean I have leave my girl completely alone for a few hours before she'll eat f/t prey on her own left in the cage.

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Well one would think....I guess I am just so use to him being a total killer!!:cool:

Im with you 100% on this one. I have having the same issue. I have to try sooooo damn hard to get him to eat. He has refused last week.
What tub is he in. I'm thinking I might have to up him (500 grams) to a 28 qt. That might solve the prob.

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Originally Posted by BPelizabeth

Well one would think....I guess I am just so use to him being a total killer!!:cool:

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Yeah, I love my pastel but I always wanted a snake with a nice feeding response. So I can understand your sentiment totally.

Hi,

My male lesser is being a bit "Meh!" about eating as well at the moment - sadly he is also being a bit Meh! about breeding with the females. :taz:

This might be a good time to try and convert him to F/T if you were thinking of it - since he has stopped needing it to be alive and moving anyway. :gj:


dr del

i have a male albino at 750 grams and he is a pain in the but to feed. He will eat 3 str8 weeks in a row then not eat for a month an a half eat once then not eat again for another 3 weeks then goes back on food weekly lol. some just like to be a pain in the but so to speak.

Well I think is a weight thing.

My Female spider decided to stop eating for a while when she got to 560~g.

She didn't eat for about 3 weeks. She was a trash can too. She recently ate a F/T I had in the freezer, but she didn't coil it. She just grabbed it and swallowed it after it had been laying in her tub for a while. That was last Saturday. That was actually the first time I've done F/T successfully.

Same thing with my female normal, when she got to 600g. She wasnt the aggressive feeder she used to be, and would take her sweet time to eat, or not eat at all.

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

Im with you 100% on this one. I have having the same issue. I have to try sooooo damn hard to get him to eat. He has refused last week.
What tub is he in. I'm thinking I might have to up him (500 grams) to a 28 qt. That might solve the prob.

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He is in a 42 qt.....we made our rack a couple of months ago....I love it!!

I am thinking it is weight...maybe they take a little OMG...I am getting big break!! :rolleyes:

I seriously think so.

I think their instincts are design to eat like eating machines until they get to 500-600~g mark. To get big quick. Survival of the fittest, or the biggest...

Then after that they seem to get a completely different feeding attitude. Or take a feeding break for a while. At least that's what I've experience with the 3 BPs I have raised from under 100-200g to 500g+.

I guess we have to wait till someone with more breeding experience steps up with the info :P

That's exactly what happened with my Bee! Up to 600 g, he was a garbage disposal...f/t rats or mice...didn't care. Then he hit 600 g and decided to mix things up a bit... ;) He's currently eating live mice (a bit of a change from his f/t small rats), but hey, at least he'll eat them. Although I've noticed that he's now starting to "take his time" about stalking them. If the conditions aren't just right, ie. he likes to stalk from the security of his hide, then he won't bother. Silly Bee...

I remember reading online that male BP's can have trouble eating when sensing females (maybe he can sense them in heat, or the such) ad ice versa can hapen to female BP's maybe give the guy some alone time away from the girls and he'll get his ferocious eating machine appetite back :D

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Originally Posted by BPelizabeth

Here is what he has been doing......first of all he will not bite and coil lately. We have to pre-kill it and lay it in his tub. Then after about 20 minutes he has to lay on it....rub on it...."love" on it for a while. Eventually he will finally eat it. Yesterday he layed his head on it for 30 minutes before he finally ate it.

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If he is actually eventually eating the rat then IMO there is no problem. I have 3 females of varying sizes (one is also a proven breeder) that eat best if I simply leave a f/t rat in the enclosure with them overnight. They have all also taken live, but their best response is with the f/t left for them with no wiggling or anything like that because they seem to know it is dead and usually don't strike and coil. One of them will usually go ahead and start eating while I am still in the room and feeding the others, one ignores the rat completely until some time after I leave, and one acts similar to your male and rubs on the rat, pokes it, lays on it, etc. until at some point she finally decides she is ready to eat it. It is actually MUCH easier to feed these girls than some of my other snakes--lay the rat in the tub and check the next morning to make sure it's gone. :)

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Originally Posted by BPelizabeth

Little bee terd!!!!!! He has been so passive about eating lately and is truly driving me nutso! He has always been such a fierce eater...imagine trash can...and that would be him. Well he has hit 600 grams now and is finiky.

Here is what he has been doing......first of all he will not bite and coil lately. We have to pre-kill it and lay it in his tub. Then after about 20 minutes he has to lay on it....rub on it...."love" on it for a while. Eventually he will finally eat it. Yesterday he layed his head on it for 30 minutes before he finally ate it.

His husbandry is spot on....but I am wondering if I should move him into a rack without the girls? Maybe the girls are throwing him a little off??? He is at the size that he could get a little action....but the girls are not at all big enough yet.

I don't know....thoughts??

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Enough with that dirty talk in the second paragraph. This is a G rated site.:D

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Originally Posted by mlededee

If he is actually eventually eating the rat then IMO there is no problem. I have 3 females of varying sizes (one is also a proven breeder) that eat best if I simply leave a f/t rat in the enclosure with them overnight. They have all also taken live, but their best response is with the f/t left for them with no wiggling or anything like that because they seem to know it is dead and usually don't strike and coil. One of them will usually go ahead and start eating while I am still in the room and feeding the others, one ignores the rat completely until some time after I leave, and one acts similar to your male and rubs on the rat, pokes it, lays on it, etc. until at some point she finally decides she is ready to eat it. It is actually MUCH easier to feed these girls than some of my other snakes--lay the rat in the tub and check the next morning to make sure it's gone. :)

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She speaks.:P:D

How is Henry doing? My normal is still going on and off every other week. Kinda annoying but now I have a breedering colony so I just throw in the left over food(live) and use it next week. haha Building my 41 qt rack now I hope this helps. With him and a 90 gram rat in the tub there is no more room. haha

Just reading this thread and it all sounds too familiar. When I bought my BEL the shop told me that she NAILS the f/t so agressively that she ripped the tail off most of the times (when they hold it by the tail etc.)

Mine is now 944g and all she does is stretching out of her hide until she can reach the rat, also "cuddles" a bit, swallows it and goes back into her hide ...

Pretty much same story ..

I have 3 that are being pains too. Not sure why, just not feeling like eating is my guess. The boy is about 580g and hasn't eaten in 8 weeks, then two females one 780g hasn't eaten in 9 weeks and the other female who is 1720g just ate yesterday for the first time in 9 weeks, but would only eat a small rat FT.

I feed all of mine FT and none of them cuddle or just easily swallow they all strike pretty fiercely. But I have one who is a MAJOR pain and will not take it unless I am holding him in my hand - the snake in the left, the rat in the right. He is little now so I don't mind so much, but once he is bigger I would like to avoid this so that he wont mistake my thumb for a meal. If he does though, oh well. I am used to my occasionally grumpy burm so these little guys bites are laughable compared to her.

Has anyone ever had the issue with having to hand feed like me? and not force or assist feed, just hold it so they can grab it from your hand.

Idk but I switched ALL of mine over to live now. But just last week I switched back to F/T on my spider and she's eating great which is good cuz I need her ready as soon as possible. haha
When I had an issue with feeding I just switched to feeding live.
But I sware they love mice for than rats. They seem more willing to eat when the smell of mice is in the air and I drop a mice in vs a rat. But when trying to feed now 70+ grams to my snakes mice aren't the way to go they just don't get big enough.

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Originally Posted by jtyson123

I have 3 that are being pains too. Not sure why, just not feeling like eating is my guess. The boy is about 580g and hasn't eaten in 8 weeks, then two females one 780g hasn't eaten in 9 weeks and the other female who is 1720g just ate yesterday for the first time in 9 weeks, but would only eat a small rat FT.

I feed all of mine FT and none of them cuddle or just easily swallow they all strike pretty fiercely. But I have one who is a MAJOR pain and will not take it unless I am holding him in my hand - the snake in the left, the rat in the right. He is little now so I don't mind so much, but once he is bigger I would like to avoid this so that he wont mistake my thumb for a meal. If he does though, oh well. I am used to my occasionally grumpy burm so these little guys bites are laughable compared to her.

Has anyone ever had the issue with having to hand feed like me? and not force or assist feed, just hold it so they can grab it from your hand.

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:O wow and I thought mine were spoiled...lol. No I have never had to do that. But Henry is still acting the same as before, however this week he was in shed...so he took it but we had to kill it and lay it in there for him. :rolleyes: