Back to mice again! Feeding problems w/ BPs?

[JamminJonah]

Another sporadic post by yours truly! This a positive one however, as my snake Icculus has finally eaten! Only downside to this being... he's eaten mice. Below is my theory on why this has happened:

When I am in Chicago living with my parents, I live in a nice house with a high standard of cleanliness and low occurrance of small rodent poplulation flare ups.

Here in Nashvegas with my musician friends at college (I just graduated in Dec.) we live in a P.O.S house that is more conducive to collecting beer cans and rodent problems than studying.

Icculus last ate the first week of December. I was concerned enough by October to take him to the vet and he got a clean bill of health. Excellent girth, excellent skin condition, clear eyes etc. I was trying to feed him rats (as had been his previous three meals) and he simply wouldn't eat- wouldn't even strike. Then it clicked - all these mice.. well not really all these, but I've cought at least seven... yuck... anyways, it clicked that perhaps Icculus had gotten a whiff of his old dinner and missed it.

I relented and purchased some mice from my local herp stop (they buy bulk from Rodent Pro - as do I at home in Chi town). He is gobblin' them up! I found out part of it was a heat issue. I normally thaw by just taking them out of the freezer after work and letting them sit near the cage until ten or eleven pm. He missed his first strike though, so I grabbed a hair dryer and warmed up the head of the mouse for about two minutes. I always check to make sure nothing is frozen but I guess the head wasn't warm enough because WHAP! He nailed it again tonight. So he has finally started eating (at least the past two weeks) though it's mice. So lets try scenting again shall we?


Sorry so long - hope it helps someone sometime.. please ignore typos and or grammatical ignorance haha.
-Jonah

[latesam]

Having your snake not eat in close to 4 months seems like more of a problem then it eating mice. Nothing wrong with your snake eating mice, I feed Curly 2 mice every 10 days or so...
i've thought about going up to small rats but i don't want to go through the hassle of changing prey, and don't have the equipment to keep a rat if he doesn't feed.
Personally i feed live, but it sounds like you feed F/T, but whatever works...if you switched from live to F/T that might be a problem too...
Also i would be wary of feeding your snake mice that you caugt in the 'wild', what if they had some sort of disease like rabies or something that could give your snake, or you an infection?
i would try to keep your snake feeding about every week or 10 days assuming it is an adult.
Reasons why your snake didn't feed might be temp related, make sure you are keeping the proper gradient.

Any ways there are some things to think about. and my 2 cents.

good luck.

[JamminJonah]

oh yeah you're absolutely right. I would never feed any mice I caught anywhere lord only knows what they're carrying! Yeah I'm an F/T man myself, just less expensive and easier for me. Yeah I'm glad he is eating again I'm just ready to get him back on rats. It just makes life easier haha. Thankfully he's always eaten well and he didn't lose any noticable amount of weight. He just wanted it to warm up as did I.
Thanks for the input!
Jonah

[SatanicIntention]

Also i would be wary of feeding your snake mice that you caugt in the 'wild', what if they had some sort of disease like rabies or something that could give your snake, or you an infection?

Mice don't get rabies, and even if they did, snakes can't contract rabies either. Just like chickens can't either because the virus can't survive in such extreme body temperatures. Their's is around 105 degrees! Any animal can give you an infection if it bites you, or if you ingest its feces unknowingly(cats using the sandbox as a litterbox and then kids go play in it, eat sand or just stick their fingers in their mouths, and contract pinworms or other parasites). Besides, you can get parasites from any animal by just ingesting fecal material... Ick..

Hey Jonah, nice to see you around. How's school going or did you already graduate? I guess Icc is just being Icc, but glad he finally decided to eat something, even if it is a mouse. Hopefully he'll keep it up and decide that rats taste better. Maybe they need a meat tenderizer or something?

[jotay]

Jonah!
Good to see ya around
My Ozzy did the same trick. Got him Dec03 started to feed him rats around May which he ate until like Aug at which time he moved into his new digs and went on a brief hunger strike, got him eating again by offering mice which he gobble like a hobo on a ham sandwhich.
Then he went on the fall strike for 16 weeks and now is back eating mice real good so Sat night I offered a rat and he didn't even come out of his hide to look but them I popped a mouse in there and he nailed it so hard I thought he was going thru the cage door.
Some bp's just dig mice, guess it's like how I much would rather have a nice med-rare steak as oppose to a good burger, go figured

hey look on the bright side,
at least he is eating !!

[daniel1983]

you guys act like feeding mice is a bad thing.....as long as they eat right

[Adam_Wysocki]

It's really unlikely that it has anything to do with the scent of the rodents from the house. At times over the years I have kept tanks of rodents in the same room as my snakes and have consistent feeding results.

Some ball pythons just prefer mice ... just like some people prefer chicken over beef. Sometimes you can get them to eat something else, but often they will hold out for their old favorite. Feeding ball pythons mice isn't a bad thing if that's what they prefer.

Sometimes you have to listen to what your snakes have to say. They will tell you what's best, just roll with it.

-adam

[Slynig]

The great and knowledgeable Icculus. I like that. I was originally going to name my baby Rhombus or some other obscure reference to Gamehenge but I eventually settled on Axilla in honor of the boys.

[Super_Smash]

I'm having the exact same problem with Pandora! I'm going to get some mice hopefully tomorrow, she stopped eating in November, ate a rat in March, and is now not eating again. I also think it's because she has mice cages in the same room as her tank, and she's CONSTANTLY at the screen on top, flicking her tongue like crazy. She's a big girl, but she's visible losing weight. Hopefully the mouse thing works!