So I thought I would feed her tonight...

Or even yesterday. So we went to the place where we bought her, and turns out they're shut down for the entire first week of August. I took that as a sign of "You better wait one more day" and waited til today to go acquire a feeder. I go to the other pet foods store in town, Discount Pets, and they're completely out of all feeders, and won't be getting more til tomorrow night 10 mins before they close. Petsmart or Petco don't carry live feeders (at least here they don't), so those two stores are out the window. Now I have to drive 20 mins away to go get a feeder... Feeding is nothing like I thought it would be!

So I found this store (Yay Yellowpages!!) and they're giving out rat pups that were born today, I think. I guess I can't complain if they're free, but I'm kinda hesitant on if it'll be big enough for her. I guess a small meal is better than no meal, at least I hope.

You could always start the conversion to F/T. Being able to have a months supply of food in the freezer is pretty nice. Once you drop down to a weeks supply you can order more, and mix n match the sizes for your growing snake.

I have one that refuses to take F/T and I agree that finding feeders can be a huge pita when you only have a small number of suppliers in the area.

Well I'm terrible with directions, and couldn't find the store. I decided I might as well try F/T, if she's hungry, I would imagine she'll take it. I thought they were rats, turns out they're mice fuzzies, but I got 3 in a pack. Wish me luck, we'll need it!

She didn't eat. Actually I think we pissed her off more than anything.

I'm at my wits end. This snake is gorgeous, I would prefer to keep her, but if she's not going to eat with me, and she's eaten with the breeder the best thing to do would work out a deal with him, right?

Here she is, it's a really bad picture, but the best I could do without using a flash
http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...7/100_1403.jpg

And here is her tank. It's blurry, sorry. If need be I can get one tomorrow when I'm more calm. It's very cluttered, two hides, temps hardly ever go over 95, and never under 75. Humidity is consistently between 50 and 60. The only thing is that the two hides aren't the same, I tried two exact hides and she didn't want anything to do with them.
http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...7/100_1402.jpg

I called the breeder and left a message. they're closed the entire first week of august, but I'm hoping he'll at least give me a call back concerning a bad feeder that he told me was a good feeder. I don't know what do to. I'm kinda freaking out inside right now.

It's also possible that she didn't eat cuz it was frozen. How long can a baby go without eating? According to the breeder she was born early July, last ate July 23rd. But, he doesn't keep feeding records so I have no idea if this information is even accurate.

Anyways, any info would be greatly appreciated. I guess next thing we'll try is putting her in a separate enclosure with a live rat, maybe she'll be less stressed out in 5 days. But, she seems to not be the typical snake so I'm sure that won't work either.

She looks very skinny to me. When I looked at the lower part of her body, I couldn't believe how small it was. You really need to put some weight on that snake, even if you hate feeding live, you will need to get her some live hoppers or something that will fill her up pretty good.

Well today I had no way to get a live feeder. Soonest I can get one is tomorrow, and even that's iffy. I have no idea how much she weighs, I forgot to mention that. He never told me how much she weighed, and I don't have a scale. I'm tempted to try and feed her tomorrow, cuz I know she's gotta be hungry, and she does need to eat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elise.m

Well today I had no way to get a live feeder. Soonest I can get one is tomorrow, and even that's iffy. I have no idea how much she weighs, I forgot to mention that. He never told me how much she weighed, and I don't have a scale. I'm tempted to try and feed her tomorrow, cuz I know she's gotta be hungry, and she does need to eat.

---

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if she had internal parasites (worms) :\. Internal parasites take most of the nutrients your snake takes in, so in result, you end up with a skinny and underweight snake with a worm that is full of nutrients and is completely healthy inside of that underweight snake.

How old is she?
When was the last time she has eaten?
How long have you had her?

If she does have that, I'm going to be extremely upset with the breeder. I even looked him up on Fauna and saw nothing but good things. Go figure, my luck I would get the one bad feeder of his entire collection...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by llovelace

How old is she?
When was the last time she has eaten?
How long have you had her?

---

I answered these earlier, but I'll answer again.

She's 3-4 weeks old, born in early July.
Last time she ate (That I was told) was July 23rd.
We've had her since July 25th, have not handled her at all.

I'm pretty sure she probably doesn't have internal parasites. She is probably stressed due to the size of the enclosure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elise.m

I answered these earlier, but I'll answer again.

She's 3-4 weeks old, born in early July.
Last time she ate (That I was told) was July 23rd.
We've had her since July 25th, have not handled her at all.

---

Yes enclosure is entirely too large. She needs to be in a 6qt shoebox size enclosure

Hm... Hm... I think I'll make that transition tomorrow then. I was told that a 20gL would be ok for a hatchling... She seems to like it, but I have no idea what she's thinking. I'd love to know though!

Thanks llovelace!

Edit: How long do you think I should wait to feed her after making the switch then?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elise.m

Hm... Hm... I think I'll make that transition tomorrow then. I was told that a 20gL would be ok for a hatchling... She seems to like it, but I have no idea what she's thinking. I'd love to know though!

Thanks llovelace!

Edit: How long do you think I should wait to feed her after making the switch then?

---

The parasites was only a guess, since the snake seems so skinny. Though, now that I look at it, the snake doesn't seem to feel secure in that large enclosure. If you have a large enclosure with a baby snake in it with an open space it's most likely not to eat due to stress. When you have a large enclosure, never have any open spaces because it would not make the BP feel secure. And since the BP is new, it may be stressed and still is trying to get used to it's surroundings so give it another 5-10 days to settle in (with disturbing it besides changing the water dish), then try to offer a food item.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elise.m

Hm... Hm... I think I'll make that transition tomorrow then. I was told that a 20gL would be ok for a hatchling... She seems to like it, but I have no idea what she's thinking. I'd love to know though!

Thanks llovelace!

Edit: How long do you think I should wait to feed her after making the switch then?

---

Switch her tomorrow, then wait about 4-5 days to offer food. She'll be fine :)

Well there are no open spaces. It's all cluttered with newspaper. I'm gonna go to wal mart tomorrow and buy a 6qt tub, and a scale. Set up the enclosure, switch her, try to feed her maybe 5 days after that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elise.m

Well there are no open spaces. It's all cluttered with newspaper. I'm gonna go to wal mart tomorrow and buy a 6qt tub, and a scale. Set up the enclosure, switch her, try to feed her maybe 5 days after that.

---

When I got my little guy (5 months old) 227g back in Feb. he went off feed for a month. so I put him in a rubbermaid take-a-long (pic below). and he has done well ever since, he just upgraded to 15qt tub he's 400+g now.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...ishrack3-1.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elise.m

Well there are no open spaces. It's all cluttered with newspaper. I'm gonna go to wal mart tomorrow and buy a 6qt tub, and a scale. Set up the enclosure, switch her, try to feed her maybe 5 days after that.

---

Your going to need a UTH (if you don't have one) and a thermostat to control the heat given off by the UTH. Good luck with you and your snake :]

Are the first few meals crucial? Supposedly she's eaten twice. I don't think going off feed for ~2 weeks would do her harm, but I'm still new at this. Also, I don't even know for sure if she really did eat, but I would assume so since that's what he told me.

Edit: And yeah, I left out that I was going to have to pick up another UTH cuz I thought that was kinda stating the obvious =P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elise.m

Are the first few meals crucial? Supposedly she's eaten twice. I don't think going off feed for ~2 weeks would do her harm, but I'm still new at this. Also, I don't even know for sure if she really did eat, but I would assume so since that's what he told me.

Edit: And yeah, I left out that I was going to have to pick up another UTH cuz I thought that was kinda stating the obvious =P

---

Yes they are important, most breeders will get at least 5 meals in before selling hatchlings. when you get the new uth do not remove the sticky paper, instead wrap it in aluminum foil then tape it to the tub with aluminum tape, so you don't have to fuss with removal when she upgrades to a bigger tub.

Well I hope she can recover. I thought it was kinda odd that she's only had two meals and he was selling her, but it was a spur of the moment buying. The more those happen, the more I despise them!

Thanks for the info on the UTH, I wasn't aware of that when I stuck the one on her current tank, so I'm stuck with a tank that has a UTH on it. I'll put it to use someday though.

You could try this:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ht=uth+removal

Ok, so I've got all the tub materials and ready to put it together. Just one question, do I need to cover the sides of the little tub, or is it ok without being covered up cuz it's kinda blurry anyhow?

Heh, true to form she starts day time roaming today, just about 5 mins ago, scaling the sides of her tank. I have her tub all set, just waiting on the UTH to heat up!

So I've switched her to the tub, I bought a 12 qt. One hide is in there. One water dish. UTH warmed up and working. Cypress Mulch as substrate. She's been in there for ~30 mins and won't stop roaming. I transfered her when she was roaming in her 20gL tank, so she might be super stressed atm. Hopefully she'll realize there's nothing bad about this new little tub, and calm down. Has anyone else had a snake that seems to stress when switched to a tub?

Any time their environment changes drastically they get stressed. Give it some time, eventually she'll calm down.

How many holes did you need to put in the tub? With cypress mulch, your humidity could go way high.

I put 8 holes on each side, the sides are getting a little condensation... I can switch her to paper towels (I don't get any newspapers), should I wait til tomorrow to do that?

Well, you don't want condensation in the tub, so you can either switch to paper towels or add more holes. I would recommend doing paper towels first and seeing what the humidity is. You'll find it's a lot easier than cypress mulch to clean and buy.

If that's not enough to lower the humidity, then go ahead and add some holes. Just make sure to give the tub time to stabilize in between what you do.