Stubborn Snakes

[AwBaillie]

Well, as the title suggests, we have a pair of stubborn snakes, who are refusing to eat anything. we have tried F/T, we have tried live, we have tried fresh killed and we have even tried to assist feed, which the snakes refused as well.

The female, we knew was off feed when we bought them almost 4 months ago. The male however, was said to have been a ravenous feeder, as well as quite nippy, though he has never bitten or struck at us once.

We're really at a loss on what to do. We're more concerned with the health of the male, as he is the smaller of the two, sitting at 370-ish grams, while the female, a year older, is at the 1100g mark.

Any ideas from anyone here? Or anyone had similar snakes who refused to eat...well...anything.

[DemmBalls]

Well, as the title suggests, we have a pair of stubborn snakes, who are refusing to eat anything. we have tried F/T, we have tried live, we have tried fresh killed and we have even tried to assist feed, which the snakes refused as well.

The female, we knew was off feed when we bought them almost 4 months ago. The male however, was said to have been a ravenous feeder, as well as quite nippy, though he has never bitten or struck at us once.

We're really at a loss on what to do. We're more concerned with the health of the male, as he is the smaller of the two, sitting at 370-ish grams, while the female, a year older, is at the 1100g mark.

Any ideas from anyone here? Or anyone had similar snakes who refused to eat...well...anything.

In my opinion...to get to those sizes, they have been eating at some point. Unless they are very under weight...I would not force feed them at that size. The more stressed they are...the less likely they are to eat. I have a 1200 gram female that has not eaten in over a month. I just offer her food once a week and hope she starts back up.

How often are you offering them meals? What temps and humidity are they kept at? How big is their enclosure and do they have hides?

[seeya205]

The male at that size sould not be going off feed. Females I find go off after a 1000 grams for some reason. Since you have both off feed and the one should be eating well, I would guess it is a husbandry issue! Make sure everthing is perfect. Here is a caresheet: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ius)-Caresheet

Follow that and hope they start eating!

[A.VinczeBPs]

Oh, we know they've eaten before, and apparently quite well. The breeder is reputable.
The male has lost a substantial amount of weight since we first got him, and I don't like seeing skin hanging off the sides of him.

They're in bins, all the others above, below, and beside them all eat ever week. (7 day feeding schedule).
Humidity is high up at 60-70% and we've never had a bad shed.
Temperature is 90-91 hot side, a bit above room temp at the cool end. It's dark enough they should never need hides, but we tried giving them hides at the start, it's not made a difference at all.

They're the only two in the whole collection that refuse to eat. We thawed rats the way the breeder did, we have everything else identical to his setup except bedding (we have aspen, he has coconut husk).

It's not husbandry. They're not ill. They're just very annoying. It's only the male we worry about though, as he's getting thin. The female, well they can go off feed around that size for some time, and she's lost a little but not anything amazing, she'll eat whenever.

[A.VinczeBPs]

The male at that size sould not be going off feed. Females I find go off after a 1000 grams for some reason. Since you have both off feed and the one should be eating well, I would guess it is a husbandry issue! Make sure everthing is perfect. Here is a caresheet: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ius)-Caresheet

Follow that and hope they start eating!

All other ball pythons in our whole collection eat fine. And they have identical racks, controlled with our herpstats...so...not husbandry.
Thanks for being concerned though.

[seeya205]

I would try live! Sometimes that will get their natural hunting instincts going!

[Justin Li]

You could try to scent them with tuna, tuna really appeals to some snakes. Or dip the prey item in warm chicken broth, which has been known to work on some snakes.

[dr del]

Hi,

Is it possible you are offering or pre-scenting in a different way to the breeder?

It might be worth asking him to run through his feeding and food prep routine with you one more time to see if anything jumps out.

Also what is the actual cold end temp - if he was heating the room to a higher level that might be enough of a difference.

Are you handling them more than the breeder was?

It might also be worth trying the substrate change if nothing else makes sense.


dr del

[A.VinczeBPs]

Hi,

Is it possible you are offering or pre-scenting in a different way to the breeder?

It might be worth asking him to run through his feeding and food prep routine with you one more time to see if anything jumps out.

Also what is the actual cold end temp - if he was heating the room to a higher level that might be enough of a difference.

Are you handling them more than the breeder was?

It might also be worth trying the substrate change if nothing else makes sense.


dr del

We already asked the breeder how he pre-scents and we've been doing it the same way, his only advice was to try live to try and kick them back into the feeding response, and that didn't work either.
Cold end temp is about 75-78, which is close to what he keeps it at, he said it shouldn't cause this.
Maybe the substrate is the problem, however it's expensive and hard to come by in this area. However, we were talking about it, and seeing where we can get it.
We haven't handled them at all, except for cleaning, when you have so many snakes you don't really get to hold them much anyway, but we make it a habit not to handle snakes that haven't taken meals with us.

@Justin Li: We tried the tuna once, and they seem less interested than just a normal rat. Doesn't seem to recognize it as food.

[dr del]

Hmmm,

You could try mice? It's not ideal but it can't really hurt at this point.


dr del