feeeding issues

so some good news and some bad news. The good news is my new girl came yesteday and is evedently doing just fine since she's already pooped, peed, and eaten a f/t mouse this morning! she hit it so fast and took it into her hide to gobble it down. She did however leave quite a mess, is this a common occurance when feeding f/t? {this was my first time}

the bad news is that Ror is being very picky. I offerd him a f/t mouse to see if he'd finally eat it and he actually stook it this time. but thats as far as he got, after he figured out it was dead he unraveled and just stared at me... he hasn't touched it. what should i do?? Since i already have one snake that is seemingly eating f/t fine, i'd really like to just get thoes. the mouse i offered Ror was a bit damp, could that be it? what else should i try? also, should I leave the mouse in there for a while or take it out?

When I fed Bauhamat a few days ago she struck the mouse and eviscerated it, made a nasty mess, so I had to move her to sanitize the sides and bottom of her cage, I've never even seen something so cute do something so grotesque, but it was certainly nature at it's best. So I guess it would be something normal.

Can't honestly say any of my snakes make much of a mess at all whether they are eating f/t, p/k or live. With f/t though if you've over heated the prey sometimes it gets umm a bit explosive or if the prey has been refrozen I've heard of it getting messy like that. Could just be the belly wall was thin and it popped from the pressure of her coil.


Some snakes like a lot of privacy to eat so you may need to just walk away and leave Ror with his prey so he can settle down and eat it. Other snakes need you to do the zombie mouse dance jiggle thing to promote a good strike and coil. Just don't leave the prey in so long it gets stinky and don't refreeze prey you've left in the tank for any significant time. Once you find the trick that gets him eating, stick with it faithfully as these snakes LOVE routine.

I have to say I have two out of my six balls that will not take anything but live. Doesn't bother me as I prefer to feed live and have tried it with all my snakes. If you prefer to feed f/t that's cool, you may just have to try a few things, be patient and consistent and also do a search here as there should be tons of threads on it.

Best of luck!

~~Jo~~

Sorry it took so long to respond but I went on a snowboarding trip this weekend. Let me give you guys a little of an update. I left the mouse in with Ror for 2-3 hours while I was packing on friday then took it out and refroze it for my more eager eater. I wouldn't feel good to leave without Ror eating so I gave him the live mouse that I got that day just incase he didn't eat the f/t. He stuck and coiled it a little faster than normal and then uncoiled and immeadiatly ate it.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Some snakes like a lot of privacy to eat so you may need to just walk away and leave Ror with his prey so he can settle down and eat it.

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I can assure you that Ror is not shy about eating. He's eatin in front of an audience of 6 with no problem and he eats infront of me every time. But when I offered the f/t he stuck it, coiled, then in less than a minutes uncoiled and just stared at me. He's just a spoiled little thing. do you think 2-3 hours is enough time?

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

If you prefer to feed f/t that's cool, you may just have to try a few things, be patient and consistent and also do a search here as there should be tons of threads on it.

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Its not that I prefer to feed f/t its just that it makes more sense for my wallet! But i'll do some research and hopefully next times feeding will go better.

So Ror's picky..... I guess I can only blame myself for giving him live up untill now. I've decided to just give him live and maybe after christmas i'll start breeding rats as a little experiment and so I don't have to make that weekly pet shop run. My girl {still unnamed..... it takes me a while} ate another f/t and was out on her first handling session on weds. She did great! Right when i picked her out of her cage she started exploring. No ball time whatsoever!! she seems to be very well adjusted!

oh btw, the girl is about to go into shed so i'll wait till shes done to take some pictures.

Yep we've gone back and forth over f/t for the exact same reason...it's a lot easier on the wallet compared to what I currently pay for live in our area (those rats should pass golden nuggets for what I'm flippin paying for them!). For us though our snakes just do better on live and so we're sticking with that.

Hoping our 5 female rats start producing (1 has a litter of 9, 1 is looking preggie and the others 3 are in with the male right now). I'm terribly sad how fixated I've become on rodent reproduction! LOL


~~Jo~~

Jo, do you think it would be practicle for me to breed rats. I only have two snakes so obviously I'd only need one female rat but is it worth it for just two snakes?

Probably not, but it's up to you. You have to figure in all the food and caging supplies as well what I affectionately refer to as the hassle factor. If it's something you like might like doing then why not, but I think until you have 5+ snakes it's probably not worth it. There's my :twocents:

ok so I was a little wrong with that update. This morning I woke up to a smell I couldn't take. It turns out that my little girl didn't actually eat that f/t I recently gave her... just hid it under her substrate. Let me tell you the smell was unbareable. I had to leave the room many times before I just decided to take everything out of the tub and run to the dumpster and dump it. {I have a terrible gag reflex} It took a lot of cleanings to get the smell out of the tub.

But I guess I really can't blame her... her eyes are very blue and her skins all wrinkly. But I thought that if a snake didn't want to eat becuse of shedding it wouldn't take interest in the food. She struck, coiled, and started to eat it. I left the room cuz i thought she'd be ok and when I came back there was no mouse. Im not going to worry too much till after her shed unless someone thinks this is abnormal.

Yeww I would have been green too! I personally don't worry if any of mine refuse during their shed cycles, some do, some don't...in the end it's only a week of missed food and in nature these aren't snakes that eat on a carved in stone regular cycle (well unless I'm misinformed and someone runs around passing out prey into the terminite mounds on a regular basis LOL).

As far as breeding live for 2 snakes it's really up to you, your interest in caring for mice or rats (mice stink, rats usually don't), etc. If you prefer live or your snakes only want to take live then either you breed for them or you buy from someone else that does. I'm not experienced enough yet in breeding my own rats to say what ratio male to female rat your going to need for a specific number of snakes. I'm sure someone like TekWarren would be better able to say. We are trying to breed for our snakes due to the ridiculous prices of our pet store but it will be quite awhile yet till I'm self-sufficient preywise.

Just a quick question, just to check.....the stinky prey you removed was just left i.e refused or was it regurged after eating?

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Originally Posted by Boarder4l154

so some good news and some bad news. The good news is my new girl came yesteday and is evedently doing just fine since she's already pooped, peed, and eaten a f/t mouse this morning!

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as a newbie myself please excuse me if i am misunderstanding your post but...

did you get the snake one day and feed it the next day? it's my understanding you need to let them get used to their new home, which means not holding them or feeding them for a few days.

i'm sick right now and can't remember how many days you are supposed to wait before attempting to feed their first meal.

Good eye there Aleesha, I missed that completely myself lol. It's generally accepted that you need to give a new snake a full 7 days or even more to settle in with no handling, minimal stress/contact other than basic cage maintenance and then offer it's first meal with you after that point. Then no handling for 48 hours of course.

Good for you for catching that even sick LOL.


~~Jo~~

ah nice to know i'm not as brain dead as this flu is making me believe LOL

actually she didn't eat her second meal... I did feed her a couple days after I recieved her but she took it just fine then... I don't think this is a matter of she being stressed cuz of husbandry.... she did fine when I handled her, no balling up or anything. I'm hoping she just didn't feel like eating because she was about to shed. I've also seen her out and about at night so that leads me to believe that shes pretty comfortable in her new home. oh well... i'll wait till after shes done shedding and offer her another f/t. no big worries just yet.

I actually fed Salazar two days after I brought him home. I thought the 7-day timeframe referred to handling issues only. He performed like a champ though. Not only did he eat after two days in a new place, it was his first f/t. He's eaten twice since so hopefully he's not too scarred.

i also feed my BP the second day that i got her.

Glad that worked out for you all with your snakes. The way I look at it myself is this....if it's generally accepted practise or wisdom gained by those that have many more snakes and years of experience than I do and have found these practises to be in their collections best interest (and have most likely seen what happens when they deviate) then who am I to reinvent the wheel so to speak.


~~Jo~~

ok so a question for the experienced. Is it ok to feed a newly aquired snake within the 7 day isolation period or would that just add extra stress? I would think that if it eats when offered, it would be ok but I'm no expert...

boarder....one should not argue with an expert. i feed on teh second day. it worked yes, but now that i know a little more about snakes, on my next purchase i will wait that 7 days or so. a snake not eatting for 7 days is probably like a human missing there dinner.

jo beat me to the punch with her post... but I will definatly heed the advise of those more experienced than me. I had never heard that you were supposed to wait till the 7th day of settling in before offering food, but now I know and the next snake I get {as I'm sure I will} will be offered on the 7th day.

Heck, I'm still such a newb in some many ways...so much I want to know...so many little tricks I'm learning as I go along too....I ask my questions too and then have to slap my forehead and think "well why didn't I think of that!" LOL.

I think that first quiet week is just good sense to follow if it's worked so well for some of the very experienced folks.

Heck I'm still thrilled that my computer and this forum have given me easy access to all this combined wisdom. I know I'm a far better keeper and my snakes are far happier and healthier because of this place.


~~Jo~~

Absolutely correct, I'm a complete newb at this game so I always heed the advice of the experts on this board. That's what makes this board so great. I was so focused on making sure my temps and humidity were correct that I must have missed the "no feeding within 7 days" part. I didn't handle him at all during that time though.

In my defense though, the breeder I bought him from told me that it would be OK to go ahead and feed him on that schedule so it's not like I was going off half-cocked!!!:D
Again, I can't say enough about the breadth and depth of the knowledge of the people who post here. One would be foolish not to heed their advice.:)

oh i agree, i claim no leetness about snakes.. still a noob. But this site has been a such huge resource of information!

ok, im new to the site and ive had my snake for about 8 months now, i usually feed him hamsters and he usually eats them with no second thoughts. about a months ago i tried to feed him but he didnt want to eat. i left the hamster in the cage forever. it almost seemed like they became buddies. they didnt fight the hamster didnt bite the snake but the snake never looked twice at the hamster. so i took that hamster out and hes my new pet hamster, his name is Red. Last week i tried another hamster, it was a female and a little smaller. he still didnt wanna eat it he just looked at it. Hes not shy or anything but he just wont eat, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get my snake to eat. i dont need anymore pet hamsters the ones i have are already mating......... help me please

most often, when a snake isn't eating it's because it's stressed OR doing the hibernation thing i've read about here. (i'm really just regurgitating info for you here)

what are your temps? humidity?

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

OR doing the hibernation thing i've read about here.

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Ball pythons don't hibernate.

-adam

well i know i used the wrong word... but what IS the right word? (isn't it fasting before they get ready to breed?)

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

well i know i used the wrong word... but what IS the right word? (isn't it fasting before they get ready to breed?)

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All of my breeders are eating every time they are offered food.

IMO, fasting is usually related to problems with health, temps, humidity, or stress.

-adam

thanks for enlightening me adam :)