Strange Feeding Question.

Hey everyone,
I had quite the week with my BP. Without diving into the story, my house was broken into and my juvenile (9-10 month) BP was stolen. Thankfully after getting into contact with local authorities she has been returned home. I have no idea where she was kept or if she was fed, she was gone for close to five days. Now that she's home she is understandably very defensive. I decided to leave her alone to settle in for a good five days... Fast forward to now, she is very active at night/looking for prey and i'm assuming she has not eaten for well over ten days. However, she is absolutely refusing her frozen/thawed small rat. Does anyone have any advice as to how I can coax her into feeding or anything extra I can do to make her feel more secure? Her husbandry was not shut down and has remained at perfect temps/humidity.

Ouch that sucks I've been a victim before as well lost a lot of things I wish I could get back even stuff with sentimental value.
Since I got snakes that problem is gone lol , for people to steal a snake in my country is a definite no.

Back to the point I would not try feed her/him for at least another two weeks who knows what that poor snake went through while gone and during the stealing process.

The activeness is not hungry it is still stressed. I would suggest close the enclosure with a towel so its completely dark for about 7 days and also double check your husbandry and fresh water other than that, give the snake some time to feel like a snake again.

I figured that would be the best course of action. Covering her tank sounds like a good idea for right now, other than her daily misting and water change. The worst part is she was making amazing progress with being handled, back to square one!! Thanks again, I am a bit of a helicopter snake-mom at times.

People steal snakes in my area like crazy. Glad you got her back!

In addition to what has already been mentioned: If you can keep the enclosure in an area with little/no foot traffic--this would also help. Snakes are acutely aware of vibrations-they can sense our T-Rex-like footfalls moving about.

I didn't know it was such a big problem until it happened to me! She lives in my dining room currently, the house is under strict tip-toe law! Easy to enforce when it's the plants and my bearded dragon haha. I have to move her again in April, I don't think I will be handling/interacting with her in the meantime.. other than feeding/water changes! Thank you so much for the advice :)

So sorry for this miserable situation. I would assume she had far less than ideal accomodations while missing. While BPs roaming their enclosure might BE hungry, that
behavior usually means they're also stressed...in any event, BPs are usually hesitant to accept food when they're out in the open like that. They are ambush-predators
that prefer to grab prey as it cluelessly passes by their hide, so watch for your snake to be peeking out of her hide at night...maybe let a couple nights like that go by for
best acceptance of prey. Until that happens try not to worry & let her relax...maybe cover part of her cage with a towel or paper to help things seem back to normal. Try not to worry about her not eating for 10+ days...that's something BPs are quite well adapted to. With any luck, she'll calm down in another week or so.

I have been trying my best not to think about what her accommodations must have been like. Her usual routine is sleeping all day and roaming for an hour or so between 23:00 and 01:00.. stress would make a lot of sense. She is still "sleeping" all day (which is a good sign!) but she is just tearing her tank up all night! She becomes VERY defensive when the time comes to mist down her tank, this is a new trait which I think we can work through. I am so hoping with patience and some TLC I will be able to have my calm and cuddly best friend back. Thank you so much for the advice :)

Think positive...I think she'll get there. :gj: Let's just hope her health wasn't compromised in any way...pay attention to see if you hear any noisy breathing (whistling,
squeaking or crackling sounds) & for that, you might have to be holding her to be close enough to hear it; I wouldn't scoop her up to check unless you see any signs of
open mouth breathing or mucus (signs of RI). I would assume that someone who steals a snake might have others, & any jerk that would steal from others is also not
likely to be the world's best snake-keeper in the first place...meaning they might already have other snakes she could have been exposed to, or they tried to sell her to
places that do, so also watch for mites...you never know. :please: Too bad snakes cannot talk...I'm glad that you at least got her back & fairly quickly.

As mentioned above I’d say it’s still stressed - we have no idea of the horrors the poor thing had to endure ..

I’d give it another week or so at least before even thinking of feeding it .

Don’t worry about the few weeks without food - my Pied Royal just recently came out of a 15 MONTH fast !!


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Oh my goodness that’s crazy! So glad yours came out of it , mine went off feed for only 3 months and it had me shaking haha! Everyone has been so so helpful , you guys are awesome !!