Snake will not gain weight

I have not been on the forums for quite some time now, and kind of miss it :D

But anyways, I have a snake that will not gain weight at all, she is eating adult mice every week, and of course just to add in, they is a stubborn feeder and skips some meals... she is about 7 months old and only weighs maybe 180 grams if I had to take a guess, I don't have a scale.

what do you guys think I should do to help her gain weight?

Getting a fecal done to test for parasites would be my first step.

Ditto, sounds like parasites. Are her feces normal i.e. mouse is digested, nothing too runny or tinged with blood/mucus?

When you say stingy feeders, are you implying that she won't eat rats at all as well?

Some of her poops have been runny now that I think about it, I've never thought about it too be honest, and yes she indeed does have very messys poops, and @ neal, where I live, rats are banned, and she will not take frozen at all, there for I'm stuck with feeding live mice. I'm going to take her to the vet some time this week.

Btw, this is not my only snake, all the others are doing well, are these kind of parasites transmittable? I have 6 of them in this rack, her and 5 others... the rest are all doing well and eating and gaining weight.

Just wondering, but how do you know she isn't gaining weight if you don't have a scale?

You can't say that she isn't gaining weight if you don't have a scale. All parasites and diseases that I am aware of could be transmitted to your other snakes. Did you quarantine this one when you first got her?

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Originally Posted by Drift

Just wondering, but how do you know she isn't gaining weight if you don't have a scale?

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Im guessing my feeding and holding her
feeling not feeding

I wouldn't personally go on feeling and guessed weights alone. It can be pretty hard to feel a difference in grams. Especially when any length of time has passed since your last reference point.

Also, I've personally been through this type of thing before, and a $10 scale was able to show me that they had in fact put on about 30% of their weight from the time I got them. Yet going on feel and sight had me doubting their progress.

Fecal sample still isn't a bad idea. Just saying, it's easy to perceive wrongly about this sort of thing sometimes, and scales are cheap and easy to find.

I would venture more into why a seven month old snake is on mice personally. Give that snake rats, on a regular basis, and it'll gain weight.

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He said rats are banned in his area.

If its not parasites, feed it multiple mice or adult asfs.



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See if you can get a hold of asfs like Satomi suggested. Those shouldn't be banned in your area.

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I breed my own asfs, and I'm going to start feeding her them, the thing is, I bought both her and her sister from the expo, her sister is atleast 4, maybe 5 times bigger. and that's how I know she is not gaining weight for the people asking. I'm going to start feeding her asfs and get a fecal exam done.

She has also been in QT with the other snakes from the expo, and is still with them, that's why I asked if it can carry on to other snakes.

I had a female with a similar issue. Very picky feeder, and was eating less and less, and had quite runny, smelly poos. The fecal testing showed only one strain of gut bacteria, which the vet told me was likely a result of stress (probably from shipping, may have been the expo in your case) causing a bacterial bloom. She got two weeks of antibiotic injections to knock back the bacteria, and I switched her to ASFs (which are technically mice anyway) and she grew like a weed.

Hopefully it's something similar (as in simple and easily treatable) going on with your girl. If possible get her in a different room from your other QT animals, since most gut-related infections are highly transmissible (think about food poisoning for example) and implement some strict hand washing procedures until you know exactly what you're dealing with.

This is starting to stress me out now, I don't have any other places to put here, either in then in the QT rack, which is where the other QT animals are, I don't think the expo would have caused that much stress, cause the expo was back in august when I got these guys, she is no where near big enough to eat more then 1 adult mouse, let alone a full grown asf, going to feed her extra, once she poops, going to take it in for a fecal exam, hopefully everything is ok, and it's nothing to bad.

How's her body condition? Can you post a picture of her?



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Originally Posted by Skilla6000

This is starting to stress me out now, I don't have any other places to put here, either in then in the QT rack, which is where the other QT animals are, I don't think the expo would have caused that much stress, cause the expo was back in august when I got these guys, she is no where near big enough to eat more then 1 adult mouse, let alone a full grown asf, going to feed her extra, once she poops, going to take it in for a fecal exam, hopefully everything is ok, and it's nothing to bad.

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I would try going with feeding every 5 days if you're not already. I would get the fecal done to be sure.

I fed her 2 mice, one being an adult, and the other a small one, she took them both.

If it helps, I found a kitchen scale that measures in grams on Ebay for only $15.00 and it came with a rather large bowl that sits atop the scale (that you could put your snake in). The scale is already calibrated so that you don't have to subtract grams for the bowl.

I just found this one, even cheaper...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-2000-2kg...item4d15d0de5e

Get a scale. Guessing at her weight and whether or not she's gaining weight is unreliable at best.