How long should you wait before feeding a new animal?

[Dianne]

For the babies, I usually give them a few days to settle in, then offer weekly. Of the 3 youngsters I’ve purchased this year: a pied and a lemonblast purchased 7/21 (hatched in July as well w/ 1 meal before sale, per sellers), and a blue-eyed leucistic purchased 8/25 (hatched May/June eating steady on live adult mice per seller). The pied has eaten the last 2 weeks (2 live pinkies last week, 1 f/t fuzzy tonight), the lemonblast is still refusing each week (not losing weight, she is drinking and moving around, so not too worried yet), and the BEL ate a f/t mouse tonight.

I picked up my 3 year old dragonfly yesterday morning, she left a deposit last night, and I offered a small rat tonight when I fed everyone else. She didn’t eat tonight, which would have been a pleasant surprise this soon, so she’ll get offered again in 2 weeks with the rest of the adults. Any left over mice/rats are offered as a bonus to other snakes, anything not eaten gets offered to the crows tomorrow morning...local wildlife appreciates refused rodents.

I’m so excited! Belle, my lemonblast, finally ate! I had ordered a couple of large live fuzzies, but what came in were hoppers. I figured it was worth a try even though she’s so tiny and bought just one. I just checked and she finally decided tonight was the night. I had to lift the hide she was under to make sure she had eaten it and it wasn’t loose - served the mouse in a bowl to contain it. She was curled up with quite the lump in her belly.