New dum not eating

[Kcl]

Hi everyone, I recently got a dum, about 3 weeks ago. She's about 6-8 months old, she seems all good and healthy from what I can tell. I know that she was fed live adult mice weekly when I got her.

She hasn't eaten yet and her reaction to feeding seemed a bit strange to me. I'm fairly sure her setup is reasonable temperature/humidity-wise. I had two hides and a large water bowl with space under the bowl, she wasn't a big fan of the hides and kept hiding under the bowl so I replaced the hides (~1 week ago), now she spends most of her time under the warm hide. Substrate is coco-fiber. She goes out at night and wonders a bit and also sometimes hangs outside the hide, I also know she drinks from the bowl. Outside of the feeding all seems fine to me. As a side note she's also very calm when handling (although I have been avoiding handling for the most part until she's stable about eating).

I tried feeding her 4 times now, I left her alone the first week to get used to her new environment. When giving f/t food I always use tongs and try to move the food. Tried giving f/t adult mice and she struck at it defensively after a while (no coiling) so I assumed she didn't want to eat. Second time, a week later, I tried live since that's what I was told she ate. She seemed defensive and wasn't going for the food. After moving the mice closer she struck at the adult mice a couple times, again no coiling. During one strike she almost coiled so I thought maybe she wants to eat so I tried wiggling the mouse a bit but she wouldn't eat it. Waited one more week, tried f/t, brained fuzzy rat (just to see if that's more interesting to her, size was appropriate), she seemed very interested this time and struck the rat outside of her hide but still no coiling. I left the rat near her warm hide, she just left the warm hide instead of eating. Since I thought she was clearly interested in eating this time, I waited 4-5 hours and tried giving her an adult mice, brained and also poked a hole in the stomach. Even before the feeding attempt she was outside of her hide, looking towards the food since she most likely could smell it. When I tried giving the food she went back into her warm hide, tried giving it to her, she struck at it a couple times, no coiling. I left the food near her warm hide overnight, she just left the food, left her warm hide entirely again.

Maybe I'm overreacting but she seemed very into the food but just wouldn't eat. I'm guessing because she's used to live, but I don't understand the no coiling if that's the case. I'm guessing I'm overreacting and it's because she is used to live mice, shy about eating in front of me (although I did basically just left her alone with the f/t food after she struck it a couple times) and not used to the environment yet (since she has been using the new hides only for a week now). Another possible issue I guess could be the tongs with the f/t food and she doesn't see it as food and just defensively strikes it and thus doesn't coil? (I'm assuming she wasn't comfortable with the environment when I gave live). Any thoughts?

[CALM Pythons]

Maybe what you said last.. Defensive strikes, tongs ect... I would wait 1 week inbetween trying to feed and do it i the late evening, keep it dark as possible. Id stick to Live or Fresh Kill until you can get her fed. My2cents

[Kcl]

I'm currently working on trying to find a good source for live. The first time I just got an adult mouse from Petland as it's the only chain that really seems to sell live feeder mice. Unfortunately, I've never fed live before and it ended up biting her (it was removed immediately and doesn't seem to have done any damage - was unable to find the bite when she was checked over). She does have a couple largish scars on her tail which look like they're from bites.

I was hoping to try something like a fuzzy rat that wouldn't be able to hurt her until she gets well enough established that she can be switched to f/t. The reptile expo was mostly out of live feeders when I went, so I'm going to be looking at a couple more specialized shops. Perhaps it would be better to just keep with adult mice as that's supposedly what she's been fed, but it would also be good to be able to leave her alone with it, which isn't an option with something that could bite her.

From what I've found, it looks like a decent number of people's baby dumerils took a while to start eating with them. Is it reasonable to assume that she's doing ok until she starts visibly losing weight or at least for a while longer? I could weigh her, but that is more disturbance than I'd like for her until she starts eating.

[BPGator]

If I got it all right, I only recall one instance where you attempted a live feed and you said it was an adult mouse. My Dum is 8 months old and I feed him weaned mice (he's about 200g). Not sure how big yours is, but you may want to try a smaller live mouse. You can also leave a live rat fuzzy in overnight with him.


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[Kcl]

That is correct - only one live attempt and it was an adult. I am working on trying to get a rat fuzzy or a smaller live mouse. I wanted to leave a rat fuzzy in with her this week instead of trying f/t again, but the reptile show only had adult rats as live food when I went and the petland doesn't have anything other than adult mice or adult rats. The Petland also doesn't know the difference between most of their frozen feeders and tried to sell me mouse pinkies as rat pinkies once and they have some other issues, so just not a very good source in general. I'm going to be looking at a couple local non-chain pet stores to try to get a live feeder rodent that isn't an adult.

She is a 2016 baby - I haven't weighed her as I didn't want to handle her unnecessarily. She's probably a similar size though.

Edit: Just to make sure it's clear, the breeder stated that she was fed live adult mice.

[Kcl]

Just wanted to update - managed to track down a rat fuzzy finally. She had refused a live mouse the day before (she seemed to follow it, tried once to strike it, missed, and kind of gave up). Since I couldn't really keep the rat fuzzy alive to wait a week, I went ahead and left it in with her anyway.
Thankfully she ate it!

We weighed her after she refused the live mouse - she was only 119g. Weighed again the day after giving the rat fuzzy to make sure she didn't somehow bury it instead and she was up to 136g! (rat fuzzy was 17g). Going to get her a couple more meals and then work on switching her to f/t.

[Albert Clark]

Nice job!

[cletus]

Right on. Glad to hear that she ate!!

[Team Slytherin]

Has the feeding improved any? I also have a young Dumi and she is forever on an "LA diet." They are often shy eaters and have to feed alone in the dark. Interested to know if you've found any tricks that brought you consistency.

[Kcl]

This little girl ended up passing away after a few months. The necropsy never found anything and was a really awful experience. Before she passed away, she did start eating live rat fuzzies and then f/t rat fuzzies when left alone with them overnight. She also got evaluated as healthy a week before she died by the vet after finishing several weeks of antibiotics for an RI. With how low her weight was when we got her (>120g for a ~6 month old), she may just have never been healthy in the first place. I'll never really know. She was a real sweetheart and I miss her, but I don't know that I could have done anything else to save her.