Not eating

[zelos888]

Hello, I know my girl did this for a short time last year too but I just want to make sure everything is fine. My girl hasn't eaten since October 1st and then her weight was 1588g. Today her weight is 1620g which is down from her weight of 1708g on October 12th. I've been offering her a rat every week and a half. The rats have average weight at 200g. I'm going to try and either buy a smaller rat or maybe try feeding a small live mouse? She's never eaten live before though. I'm not sure if it matters but she's just over two years old. I do live in the mountains and we just got a big snow storm but I've kept her enclosure at a nice temp. I think she's just fasting but I just want to be on the safe side. I am moving across country in a month and my mother will be watching her for awhile, so want to make sure everything is fine.

Here's a few pics.

[200xth]

They may go off feed for a period of time no matter what. As long as the environment is good and she isn't losing weight it's not usually something to worry about.

If you want, you can try a live rat. I don't know if it needs to be 200g (that's pretty big), but even if you just toss a rat pup or weaned rat in there she may snag it.

[Naom9Anne]

She looks really healthy there. I would say to monitor her weight and still offer food but not as often, as you said she did this last year and she is definitely up to breeding weight by the sound of it so I wouldn't be too concerned unless she started losing considerable amounts of weight. I think not eating is much more frustrating for the owner's! I haven't really heard of 200g rats being used on adult BP's, a female is usually fine on small (or medium rats if she is a big girl) when they reach adulthood.

Good luck and hopefully this fast doesn't last too long for you!

[satomi325]

My adult females are off feed too. It's pretty normal for the mature BPs to be off feed right now for the breeding season. I wouldn't worry too much, especially if she did it last year.