Finally ate! What's your longest fast?

My pastel female went on her 1000g fast and hadn't eaten for me since October 2012. She FINALLY showed interest in food last night and I saw her first strike ever for 9 months without losing any significant weight. I let out the biggest sigh of relief and had the biggest smile on my face. I'm sure many of you have experienced this before!

Here's a few things I did to get her to eat:
- spray her enclosure down a few hours before feeding time
- don't handle too much
- offer smaller prey sizes than normal (she took a small rat rather than the usual medium)
- obviously monitor husbandry (temps, humidity, water, hides, substrate, etc.)
- BE PATIENT, keep offering

I was wondering what your longest fast was/is, and how you got them to start eating again!

About 10/12 Months was the longest.

9/10 months.
No tricks besides offering her a smaller size every few weeks.

I was really happy when she grabbed that rat up. :)

18 months. I'd pretty much figured she was just never gonna eat again but kept offering every week. Thankfully I keep boas so the left overs never go to waste lol. Then one day bam. And she never refused food again for the rest of the time I owned her.

10 months for me :gj:...

my albino male was 1000 grams and seems to regulate his feeding to stay that weight. i didn't change any of his husbandry or prey items. He was coming to a shed (his 3rd one during the fast), and he ate right before he shed. Now he's feeding regularly. Kinda weird lol

My 1.0 pinstripe is currently in his 8th month of not feeding. Last meal he had was end of November 2012. No change in husbandry until last week I was reading on here someone suggested changing the substrate. So the last time he ate was when he had aspen bedding (I use paper) so I put Aspen bedding back in, leaving him alone for about two weeks and see if it works when I try to feed him next week. :please:

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Originally Posted by RetiredJedi

My 1.0 pinstripe is currently in his 8th month of not feeding. Last meal he had was end of November 2012. No change in husbandry until last week I was reading on here someone suggested changing the substrate. So the last time he ate was when he had aspen bedding (I use paper) so I put Aspen bedding back in, leaving him alone for about two weeks and see if it works when I try to feed him next week. :please:

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Good luck!!

9 months huh? that sucks. lol i was hoping our bumble bee girl might be big enough to breed this winter. she was my best eater. then she hit 1,013 grams and nothing. hasn't eaten in 3 months. :rolleyes:

6 months. Currently dealing with a 3 month fast on my pastel girl. Trying to get her up to breeding weight... :rolleyes:

10 months or so. She's all about the ASFs though these days. :gj:

8 months is my longest fast. cool thing though was my albino was a die hard mouser. but after his fast finally ended he's been hammering rats.

3 weeks :D. I haven't hit the WALL yet.

7 months

7 months for my male pastel and he just started eating again about a month ago. Since then he's taken 3 good rats. Hopefully after 4 more months of good eating he'll be ready to breed again and fast the whole dang time!

Ha my first ball goes on a 6-7 month fast every winter. Freaked me out first time, now I just figure if they wanna stop eatting what ever husbandry is fine check back next week.

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10 months for me.

I will say that there seems to a 600-1000g "food wall."

For some reason when they get in that range many will just stop eating just because. And for what seems like forever. Not sure why this is. Not all do it but it is fairly common based on others I've talked to. Even BHB pointed it out in a video.

10-11 months. He is a rescue and wild caught, super pain in the bum.

My girl that went forever hit that "wall" and I have a couple of males being very picky right now that are right around 1000g

In my limited knowledge of the world and not knowing much of anything :p
I like to play guessing games and here is mine.
In the wild, I thinking maybe they are coming into sexual maturity around this size. They would be a little older compared to our snakes that get a nice healthy rat weekly.
Maybe the ones that find a mate, go on to a feeding frenzy to insure a healthy clutch. The ones who aren't ready, go on a fast to leave more of a food source for the ones ready to mate?

Like I said, just a guess.

Something I did try this year.
I had a girl coming into that "wall" while all my other girls where being paired.

I placed a male in with her a couple of times, knowing she was still too young.
She has pushed past 1000g and is still an eating machine. Very quick to grab up her rat every week.

In not saying everyone should try this but I wanted to see what she would do. Would she have never gone off feed? I don't know. I'm glad she didn't.

In my mind she was thinking, I better out on some weight if I'm going to be producing eggs. Time to eat!!

Haha

havent tried this yet, but a close friend of mine had a yellow belly female that had been off feed for 7 or 8 months. she had always been a rat eater, but he got sick of her not eating so he went n got a mouse and offered it. she snatched it right up. the week after that he offered a rat and she took it. been back on rats ever since. its like that after eating that mouse she remembered how good food was and it kicked her back into food mode. lol

Our longest fasting spell was on a pinstripe girl that refused a meal for about 8 months. BPs can be so frustrating sometimes.

Our male pastel just ate for the first time last week since Oct 2012. He ate 2 weeks in a row, and now he's in shed and doesn't want to eat again, go figure. Our female spider just started eating again too (scented rats) from Nov 2012. Seems like this is the month for all of our snakes who were off feed to start eating again, except for one. She hasn't ate since Dec 2012. But I offer every week. I don't do anything special.

I'm also like Jason, we have boas and carpets, nothing goes to waste lol :gj:

Just over 1 year, we were so scared we were going to loose her, She drank water, but never ate. She went from runt size to our largest female, Never misses a meal. I am happy to say that this year she is gravid