Please eat, baby!

Here's to hoping our new little guy will take his mouse. I warmed it up and waggled it around at the entrance of his hide, and he was definitely interested... poked his head out and thought about it, looked like he was about to strike, looked at me, thought some more, poked around, and pulled his head back in. I warmed it again, did the waggle dance again, he poked his neck out some more and thought about it some more, then decided maybe he wasn't so sure after all. So I left it at the entrance to his hide, turned out the lights, and left the room. I hope it disappears!
He seems like a fairly timid little guy, even for a BP; and this is the first time he's lived in anything other than a plastic shoe box with paper towels on the bottom, so it might just take him awhile. He's only been here a week, but he missed his last feeding because I brought him home on dinner day. If he doesn't take this one I'll try him with a live hopper in another five days or so.

I wish I could remember better the first few weeks and first few feedings with the BP I got when I was 14... but that was 20 years ago. I do remember that he was eating live hoppers when I first got him, and when he moved up to adult mice I would stun them first. When he moved to rats, he got those freshly stunned for awhile, until I realized I could save some trouble and a box by stunning them at the pet store and shoving them in my pocket (in a plastic bag!). But either way, they were still fresh and still warm. My mom used to say it would be really funny if I got mugged on the way home, and the mugger discovered that I was carrying a dead rat in my pocket where other people keep their wallet.

So... here's hoping little Hoosac eats his dinner!

Good luck!

I'd say if he's hungry, he'll take it. If not, I'd try with the F/T again before offering him live. Just my $0.02

If you're getting good response, but no real strike try getting longer tongs and keeping your body as far to the side as possible to keep from him being able to see you. If he's in a tub opening it as little as possible. Don't turn the lights on to start with, offer the meal in as dark an environment as you can to help from being seen. Once a snake is coiled around prey he becomes vulnerable to attack, sometimes they want to eat and are hungry they are just too afraid of the risks to take the reward. Good luck!

Fingers crossed.

I've found that my kings won't eat if the mouse is wiggled.
I hold the tongs as still as possible, and barely breathe...

Good luck! Every BP is different! I've found they all have unique quirks especially when it comes to how they like their food :P

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Originally Posted by Galaxygirl

I've found they all have unique quirks especially when it comes to how they like their food :P

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True story! I've got one right now (Smiley) who won't eat anything big enough to do more than crawl. :( It's been pretty vexing because he's big enough to be moving up to weaned but won't take anything bigger than a small pup. :mad: Only a 10 gram difference, I realize that, but I keep waiting for him to wake up and realize that he's bigger than them!

I've got an adult male that very suddenly won't touch any sized rat...now he wants five mice instead. Probably because he figured out how much more expensive that it. Sigh.

My old BP would happily take anything I offered, as long as it was dangling by its tail. I mostly didn't even have to wiggle it around - mostly I never got the chance, LOL. But lying on the ground or running around was a no go. He was generally pretty confident and fearless actually, but the one thing that freaked him out was live mice running around. Makes me appreciate how easy going he was! He was younger when I first got him than the new guy is, but I'm not sure by how much. I never used tongs; I'm not sure if it was because it didn't occur to me or because I figured it didn't matter with a snake that couldn't do any real damage.

Not to mention my dear old departed corn, who didn't bother with any of that pretending-it's-alive business - he'd just waltz up to his f/t dinner and open wide. Ok, maybe not waltz per se. :snake:

New little guy just needs his time I think... but next time I think I'll try blocking the front of the tank so he can't see me sitting there looking at him. I didn't turn on any more lights than I needed to see by this time... maybe I can keep it a little darker next time, and block the view from the front of the tank (three sides are blocked already).

My girl used to take F/T after some wiggling but now only takes it if I leave it on the bottom of the tank. No amount of wiggling can entice her to strike. I'm perfectly fine with dropping it in and checking back in a few minutes. It's usually gone. She's up to just over 700g now.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by pressiniron

My girl used to take F/T after some wiggling but now only takes it if I leave it on the bottom of the tank. No amount of wiggling can entice her to strike. I'm perfectly fine with dropping it in and checking back in a few minutes. It's usually gone. She's up to just over 700g now.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

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Wish mine were that easy. I should charge fees for the amount of dancing the rat has to do.

I am going through the switch from live to fT with my new girl. The first time i fed her it had been 2 weeks since she ate and i just wanted to get some food in her so i fed her a live rat pup, the next time i offered a FT rat pup and she wouldn't touch it, so i waited another week, I decided to feed her at the same time as my other two, so i took her food and sat it on top of her cage to start defrosting and shut off all the lights. I fed the others, then finished defrosting and heating hers. Using the tongs i wiggled the rat and stuck its little nose into her hide like i was just a curious little rat pup, i backed out then stuck its nose in the hide again and she hit and coiled, then dragged it into the hide and ate. I find her still very shy and doesn't come out until the house is very quiet, and all the lights are out.

We got a new baby bp a couple of weeks ago he has ate twice for us. Once he was at the ending stages of shedding. Last night he ate again. I tried the hopper dance but he didn't care for it so I just left it by his hide. I came back 5 minutes later and it was gone.

I hope he will eat for you soon. I had an adult stem eating for many months I reduced his food to a rat pup and he ate. May have been coincidence though.

He ate, he ate! :)
It's been only five days since the last attempt, but he's a youngster and while I don't think he's really much underweight, he's not chubby. I think he's gotten a little more settled in though in that time, too. He's been hanging out with his head sticking out of the hide more of the time.

This time I shielded the front of the tank with a piece of translucent plastic. I turned a lamp on in the living room before it actually got dark outside so he wouldn't be startled by the light going on, although I think he's gotten a little more used to that too. I left the mouse to thaw in the room with him for several hours, then put it under a heat lamp to get good and warm. I even stabbed it a couple of times with a knife to hopefully make it more fragrant. And as soon as I poked its little head into his hide, he grabbed it. Once I let go, I didn't want to startle him by getting up to leave the room, so I just sat still until he was done (trying to watch while also staying out of sight behind the plastic shield). This little boy sure is a cautious one (fits with his overall personality though) - he wanted to make good and sure that mouse was dead and gone, and he stayed wrapped tightly for a really, really long time before finally relaxing and swallowing. I finally got up and quietly left the room after he slithered off to his warm hide.

It's really sort of silly how pleased I am with Hoosac for eating his mouse considering that I have been feeding mice to snakes for 20 years, LOL. :snake::snake::snake::snake::snake:

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Originally Posted by Galaxygirl

Wish mine were that easy. I should charge fees for the amount of dancing the rat has to do.

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That was a pretty good joke. I feel that vibe!!

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Originally Posted by piedlover79

I've got an adult male that very suddenly won't touch any sized rat...now he wants five mice instead. Probably because he figured out how much more expensive that it. Sigh.

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My male pied is in the same boat! Only wants live or freshly killed mice. So I found a Petco in Weschester N.Y. that sell very large live mice for 3.99 each. I buy two of those every two weeks for him. I alternate how I present them but he does not refuse mice. Except frozen thawed!

how many minutes does everybody try there techniques before they give up?

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Originally Posted by piedlover79

If you're getting good response, but no real strike try getting longer tongs and keeping your body as far to the side as possible to keep from him being able to see you. If he's in a tub opening it as little as possible. Don't turn the lights on to start with, offer the meal in as dark an environment as you can to help from being seen. Once a snake is coiled around prey he becomes vulnerable to attack, sometimes they want to eat and are hungry they are just too afraid of the risks to take the reward. Good luck!

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I'll have to try all of this. I have a banana female that was pounding f/t at the breeder, but the cross country shipping along with being in all different surroundings must have stressed her enough to go off food. She went 6 weeks with no food and no weight loss really, then I finally got her to eat a f/t and it was at night, I had next to no lights on and barely got the tub open. I think I woke her up too and all she really saw was this rat dancing in front of her. I wish I could get that to happen again. I'll have to try feeding her on a separate day from everyone else so I can just focus on being sneaky.

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Originally Posted by whiSki08

how many minutes does everybody try there techniques before they give up?

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I only have two snakes that aren't too interested in f/t, and one is still kind of new and big, so I'm not pushing it hard. The other one I only try like 2 minutes or so. At a certain point she just seems to try to run and hide from it and at that point I don't want to stress the snake. I could be wrong though and maybe a little more effort would get her to feed.