3 - 4 Year Old Virgin Female Lesser On Hunger Strike?

[Aedryan Methyus]

This girl was a Craigslist purchase back in March from a breeder that was getting out of the hobby. I bought her and an adult Mojave as a pair. To the best of the seller's knowledge she was about 3 years old when I got her and he said she was a virgin. For the first couple of months I had her on a large f/t every 14 day feeding schedule and she never missed a meal. At some point, I switched her to a medium f/t every 7 day feeding schedule and she was still eating fine. Now, she has been on a hunger strike for about 2 1/2 months. She shows no interest in the rats whatsoever. She just runs and hides from it and hisses aggressively and sometimes she will bite it defensively if I keep persisting. On May 20th she weighed 1,800 grams and as of August 8th she only weighed 1,200 grams. She is in a 41 Qt. rack, 90 degrees on the hot side, 75 - 78 degrees on the cool side and the base humidity in my snake room has been running 50% - 53% all summer. I have read that when females become sexually mature they will go on a hunger strike. Do you guys think that could be what is going on? At times, I have witnessed her wrapping her water dish and she has been very active lately and seems to be hanging around the front of her tub like she's looking for something. I have tried palpating her for follicles periodically and I can't say for certain one way or the other if she has had follicles. I'm new to breeding... On one pass I could swear I feel follicles, but on the next pass I don't...

On August 8th I decided to go ahead and put the Male Mojave in with her. I left him in with her until August 13th (the day before feeding day). During the time they were in together I never witnessed any locks. Possibly courting at most... Sometimes I would see him laying on top of her and other times they would be laying at opposite ends of the tub. I never saw their tails near each other. Yesterday (the day after I removed him from her tub), I noticed she was intently staring up at the front of her tub at feeding time and I thought for sure she would eat, but all she did was keep taking flight and hissing and struck at the rat defensively a couple of times. The male also refused his first meal in months this time, too after being in with her. I plan on leaving the male out for 14 days then putting them on a 3 day in/14 days out breeding schedule. Personally, I really wanted her to get at least a couple of good feedings in before trying to breed her, but a few different breeders told me I should go ahead and put them together. A couple of people also said that sometimes breeding can get them eating again...

What do you guys think?

[artgecko]

I don't breed, but experienced something similar with my pastave girl when she got to be about 3. What finally got her eating again was offering different f/t prey. She was previously eating f/t large or medium rats like clockwork before she started refusing. Afterwards, she would accept f/t mice and would then take a rat if it followed the mouse feeding. I now have her on an ASF followed by a rat every 14 days. I also switched from offering food every 7 to every 14 days which seemed to help.

[Aedryan Methyus]

Thanks, artgecko. I'm going to get a hold of my rat guy and see if he has any ASF's available. If not, I think I might try giving her a live medium rat and see if she'll take live. So, when your girl did this and you would give her a frozen mouse, she would immediately take a frozen rat after eating the mouse? I'm going to try passing her up on the next feeding day and only offer every other week, too and see if that helps...

Does anyone else have any idea why she might be doing this?

[treaux]

I would try f/k or live before trying a frozen mouse or ASF. I have had inconsistent results with F/T feeding. I always keep frozen on hand, but prefer to feed fresh killed as I get more consistent eating that way. Helps if you have your own rat colony.

[Aedryan Methyus]

Thanks, Treaux. Dreadfully, I am preparing to start breeding my own rats... lol I basically don't have a choice, whether I want to or not. Even with just the 13 snakes I currently have, I already have to have a pretty wide variety of prey sizes available all the time. But, once babies start popping their heads out (hopefully within the next few months), I will definitely need to have live readily available to get them all eating, etc. As it is, it is very difficult (and costly) to have live medium/large rats available. To my disbelief, I recently learned that Petco and other pet stores will not even sell customers live mice or rats if they know they are being fed to reptiles and the prices they're putting on them are absurd. My rat guy that I buy my frozen/thawed from semi-locally also breeds his own rats, though. So, i'm sure I could get good deals from him on live rats. I guess I need to get a little more serious about getting setup for rat breeding/keeping...

[artgecko]

Yes. I offered the mouse (on tongs) she would strike and eat... I'd give her about 20 minutes to get it down and then she would take the rat off tongs. I'm thinking that it works because the mouse puts her in "prey mode" and she is still in that mode when I offer the rat. I will also rub the mouse on the rat while heating, etc. I do the same with the f/t ASF.

I once had a male hognose refuse food (for months) and the only thing that brought him out of it was using live.. he oddly developed a fear of the tongs and would get defensive when I tried to feed, but would also not take non-moving prey. I ended up re-homing him to someone that bred their own feeders and could offer live and they tell me he continues to feed well. This snake fed on f/t unscented mice readily before he became fearful.

[Aedryan Methyus]

Just an update on this girl... After about a 6 month long hunger strike I finally gave in and gave her a live medium rat. Within 5 minutes of just putting it in with her she snatched it up and ate. I'm really glad she ate, but I really really REALLY don't want to have to start keeping live rats on hand for her and I don't want her to get spoiled on live rats! This girl was eating frozen/thawed just fine for the first couple of months I had her. She never missed a meal until she went on this hunger strike all of the sudden. I'm hoping that by giving her this live rat maybe it will trigger her to start eating frozen/thawed again. Do you guys have any suggestions or have any idea why she suddenly stopped eating frozen/thawed? Just to recap, I let my rats sit out and thaw to room temperature in the snake room for a few hours on feeding day. Right before I feed (usually between midnight and 3:00 am) I heat the rats up with a heat gun then puppeteer. She used to just snatch them right up when I simply dangled them by the tail in front of her without even having to animate them. Now, no matter if I dangle it, animate it or leave it in with her she refuses...