Still having trouble getting a young one to eat...

I've posted several times about this snake over the past few weeks. She's somewhere between 6-8 months old (don't know for sure, she was an emergency rescue), and hasn't been eating for about a month and a week now. She ate the first couple weeks I had her no problem. She's still passing urates, so she's still drinking.
She was in a tub about 20 gallons with cypress bedding, tons of floor cover from fake plants, and hides. However, the times she ate, she had been in a smaller tub (about 5 gallons) with a flower-pot hide filled with sphagnum moss and newspaper bedding, so I've moved her back to that. I got more of a response after doing that than I was getting in the other enclosure, so hopefully that's a step in the right direction. Her temp range goes from 82-84 to 87-90, and humidity it between 50-60%. The thing that seems to get her closest to eating is leaving the rat in there with her an hour or two, then coming back and jiggling it around with the tongs.
So far I've tried waiting a week, dipping in broth, and leaving her in a small tub with the rat and nothing else. Three sides of the tub are covered at the moment, and the top is opaque.

She'll watch it for a second, and a time or two has really looked like she wants to strike it, but then decides not to. Problem is, when I open the tubs (both the smaller and larger ones), she's only interested in getting out and looking around. But only when I open them. She sits still most of the time curled in her hide and moves around a little at night. No visible signs of neurological issues, infection, or RI. Tongue-flicks quite often when she's not hiding.

I'm just at a loss for what to do... Any suggestions on what to try next? As she's dropping weight, I've decided I'm waiting for the 2 month mark, and then seeing a vet. I'd go sooner if there seemed to be anything wrong, but she seems alert and healthy other than not eating...

Go with live at least to see if it sparks a feeding response before a trip to the vet

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Originally Posted by Crazymonkee

Go with live at least to see if it sparks a feeding response before a trip to the vet

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I'd want to at least try, but nowhere near where I live is legally allowed to sell mice/rats as feeders. Thing is, she can't eat anything larger than a fuzzy, so I couldn't even buy a 'pet' one and then feed it to her as they don't sell them off that young...
I'll look around and see if there's somewhere I could get one, but I don't believe it's legal to sell mammals as feeders in NC.

Have you tried the brown paper bag method? Place the snake inside along with the F/T prey item, staple the bag up and place the whole bag back inside the enclosure. A lot of people had a lot of success doing this.

Another suggestion that may help. I've gotten my bumblebee to finally eat this way. I did the same thing you did with the smaller enclosure but once she was inside her hide I basically put the F/T rat pinkie right inside the entrance of the hide so it was blocking the way for her to get out. I came back an hour later and it was gone.

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Originally Posted by DVirginiana

I'd want to at least try, but nowhere near where I live is legally allowed to sell mice/rats as feeders. Thing is, she can't eat anything larger than a fuzzy, so I couldn't even buy a 'pet' one and then feed it to her as they don't sell them off that young...
I'll look around and see if there's somewhere I could get one, but I don't believe it's legal to sell mammals as feeders in NC.

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Oh that does make it a bit harder. I would also say try the paper bag. Good luck :)

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I've tried putting the rat in front of her hide, but she just looks at it and crawls right over it...

I'll give the paper bag thing a shot tonight. Just out of curiosity, how long do you typically leave them in the bag before checking?

I would give at it at least an hour uninterrupted.

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Well, paper bag method didn't work... I left her in there with the mouse for two periods of an hour each, but no luck. I did offer it to her on tongs first, and she even jumped toward it once like she was thinking about eating, but just decided not to.

I think I'll wait another two days without doing anything to her and try the bag method again. I'm hoping her jumping at it like that was a sign she's getting hungry...

When mine was young he'd only eat if made the fuzzy hop. I used to wiggle, re-warm (with a hair dryer) and wiggle, repeat until he took it! I'm no expert, he's my first snake. But it worked for me :)

Well I have a 4 month old ball which refused to eat for 2 weeks but luckily I got him to eat thanks to advice of other guys on this forum and I want to share what worked for me. I tried offering him slightly larger F/T rat than I fed him the last time. I heated it up with the fan so he thought that it was alive and I fed him in his enclosure so there was no stress from being transferred elsewhere. I was moving the rat around so he thought that it was alive and then I came closer to his hide, he came out and I started to just move the rat near him so he could see it. After few minutes of doing this "zombie dancing" he ate it no problem :-) maybe give it a try and try heating him up with a fan so he thinks it is alive.

Whenever we have to do the brown bag or box (for our larger snakes) we put them in a closet, closed off and far away from everything else. Maybe this will help? How often are you checking on him? Our picky eater pastel has to be in a box, in a closet, on the other side of the house and left alone for almost three hours to eat. It's a pain, but at least he eats. If we open the box, the whole process seems like it has to start over.

... I've tried things like moving the rat and warming it.

So far I've been leaving her in her enclosure in the bag mainly because I'm hesitant to move her away from her heat sources. I have a room dedicated to the reptiles, so nothing is going on around them as far as people/dogs walking around goes. I could try elevating her off the ground (I have a tub no one's in that's on a PVC pipe rack off the ground) so that she doesn't pick up on vibrations while she's in the bag though. Maybe leave her in that for several hours. Still going to wait another day to give her some time to calm down first.

The thing that confuses me is that she readily took food the first two weeks I had her, and her habitat parameters are spot on. She's not acting stressed or anything... But the store I adopted her from had no clue what they were doing. I hope this is just a hunger strike, and not a health issue.

I would say wait a few days go to the pet store and get a live "pet" mouse. At 6-8 months what's her weight? I hadn't seen it posted so maybe missed it.

I'd try getting a 'pet' mouse or rat for her, but the size she's been eating is smaller than anything they sell around here, as they only sell fully grown mice and rats... I may be able to get some from the herp vet though. The practice caters solely to exotics, so I imagine they understand that sometimes feeding live is the only option.

I would give that a try

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I don't have access to live feeders where I'm at. The pet stores only sell adult mice/rats which are too big, and it is illegal to sell mammals as feeders so I can't buy a baby one to give her.

I'll give it till the end of this week, then set up an appointment with my herp vet; I'm pretty sure they have access to live feeders, especially since they do a fair bit of wild-animal rescue work. I know they sell f/t, so they may be able to get me a live feeder.