Baby Dumeril Boa feeding help

Hey everyone, i have heard that it's tough to get baby dum's to feed for the first time when you get them. Mine is from LLL and is beautiful, apparently was eating for them, probably 10 weeks old now, i have had her for about 3 weeks. She went from ignoring all food, to at least killing mice now (live ones obviously) when i put them in there, but she wont swallow them. i have tried various sizes. feels like progress, but still frustrating. I'm trying to also get my Ball to shift to thawed and that is a miserable failure too. but i can find lots to read about that situation. not as much on the baby Dumeril's. any advice would be appreciated!

thanks.

JB

I will take a stab at it. I sold my dums about 8 years ago. I had problems getting my babies eating. I would throw a live rat fuzzy in over night. They like to feel like they are ambushing so I always used 2 inches of aspen so they can sit burried. Once they get started they never stop eating. Just be patient and give him time to settle in with minimal disturbances.

Do you have a pic of the cage setup? What are the temps and how are you checking them? I would give plenty of burrowing substrate as suggested above, make sure temps aren't too hot, put in some newspaper or fake greens for cover. Let the snake settle for a week and offer food. Maybe try a rat pup instead of a mouse, live or dead and just leave in front of his head, check in the morning and see how it goes. Do you know what it was fed on previously? Mine is a pig and has always eaten f/t rats eagerly but he was well started by the breeder before I got him. Good luck.

The cage currently is just a 40Qt Sterilite tup with a generous UTH, two hides, and a water dish. have plenty of Aspen and he does like to burrow in it, prefers that to the hides i have in there. He didn't start even striking at the live mice until he got himself burrowed. All i have available to me as options for feeders locally are small adult live mice, and then Frozen adult rats, or various sizes of frozen mice. that's it. so i can't try a lot of things. The temp varies from 70 to 98 degrees as measured by a heat gun pointed at the base of the tub. I have a nice Boaphile 4-2-2 on order, but will be a while before it gets here. need to have this guy eat first. have also tried a cricket, at the suggestion of the local store guy, but that hasn't worked either. Cricket is still living large in the tub. :)

Referring to your bp feeding problem:

What is the size/age?

What are you feeding now (live-pre killed-f/t)?



I recently switched my VERY stubborn bp to f/t and he eats like a champ now

the BP is 36 inches long or so, thick around, about 1.5 years old. pretty sure its a girl. the tank is now a 60ish QT Really Useful Box Tub. UTH only, but the snake is eating live well, so i don't think the problem is environmental. Neither my dum or my BP have ever striked at a mouse when ive dangled it in front of them. I have to leave the mouse in there for the snake to decide what to do with it. So the mice which dont move to seem to interest them at all.

First things first is to get your ball python to eat live off of the tongs.

Makes sense. i'll start trying that. i'm not as worried about that Ball as at least she is eating, but i'll start doing this. in this case, do you just present for 30secs at a time or so with a few minutes in between until she strikes?

I would feed every 7 days to make sure she is hungry. 30 seconds at a time works, obviously you want to put the mouse in as little pain as possible, but you gotta do what ya gotta do. From here on out if you want to get her to change I would only feed on tongs from now on. If she'll take live on the ground then she will take live on the tongs.

Try and get your ambient temp 78-80 with a hotspot max about 86, the huge temp varient might be part of the problem, then I would offer a small live mouse since that's what's available.

Is it ok for me to think that i can get ambient temps right in a small tub with UTH only? or do i need to change things up and get some additional heating?

Dums like to run cool, 75-85*F is typical. If yours is at 98*F it's too hot and you need to dial back the thermostat on the UTH.

That is, of course, assuming you have a thermostat. If you don't then you need to get one for each UTH. Until you do then you need to unplug them, as unregulated they can get hot enough to burn your snakes.

Dums are ground-dwellers and in the wild they burrow and wait for prey to wander by. If yours is buried with only the tip of the nose showing, it is hunting.

The dum ate last night!!!! whoo hooo. perhaps it will be easier from now on. thanks guys!

Shoot the terrible happened. So on the second feeding, now that my Dumeril is finally stryking, the mouse was in a position to bite at the snake, even though i was there with tongs to block most of it I wasn't quick enough. the snake got bit on its eye it looks and has a crease or s split in the scale over its eye. The snake appears unaffected by it, and you can see its eyeball still moving around under the bite mark. since snakes eyes have scales over them, it is possible this is just a superficial thing and the scale will be replaced at the next shedding?