Live or assist? (feeding question)

[EL-Ziggy]

Best wishes with her feedings Willow. I hope she's getting the message now. Carpets are typically very good feeders
I do have one carpet that was hard to get going on food for the first few months that I had her. I kept offering her food every 2-4 weeks and eventually it clicked for her. It still took her a good 4-6 months before she started eating consistently. She doesn't miss any meals nowadays. Keep us posted on Ms. Bridget's progress.

[WhompingWillow]

Best wishes with her feedings Willow. I hope she's getting the message now. Carpets are typically very good feeders
I do have one carpet that was hard to get going on food for the first few months that I had her. I kept offering her food every 2-4 weeks and eventually it clicked for her. It still took her a good 4-6 months before she started eating consistently. She doesn't miss any meals nowadays. Keep us posted on Ms. Bridget's progress.

Thanks, Ziggy! I checked her enclosure today and she did eat it. I'm cautiously optimistic now, so we'll see how she does this next weekend. I tried to wait her out but she started off so small and was just dwindling before my eyes. I'll have to get a weight on her in a few days - I'm hoping she's at least 70 grams at this point.

[Neal]

Glad she ate for you, different snakes adjust differently.

As others have said though, assist feeding is the absolute last thing to do, this is stressful to the animal and if not done correctly you can do harm.

[WhompingWillow]

I think I am going to officially retire this thread, as Bridget has now eaten 3 weeks in a row on her own. YAY!

[Gio]

I think I am going to officially retire this thread, as Bridget has now eaten 3 weeks in a row on her own. YAY!

It took my coastal a couple of years to be a “normal” feeder.

Now she’s game any time for whatever I offer.

I think you will have more consistency as time goes by. Don’t be discouraged if there is another halt in the feeding cycle. It’s what snakes do. 9 times out of 10 it is completely natural behavior when they refuse.

Glad things are progressing.

[WhompingWillow]

Bringing this thread out of retirement to give an update on Bridget. I was very optimistic with her having previously taken 3 meals on her own, but unfortunately she then went into shed and that put us back at square one, way back in spring of 2019.

We have been assist feeding her since but it was getting more and more difficult to get her to actually eat her mouse. She started losing weight again due to not eating her fuzzies reliably, so we had to go back down in size to pinky mice.

It's been a frustrating experience because from everything I can tell, her husbandry is on point. We also haven't been able to handle her at all except for feedings due to her not eating, and she's such a cool snake. Something we've noticed since we very first got her is that most of the time her tongue doesn't get fully retracted into her mouth. The little forks stick out. And she doesn't usually flick her tongue out the whole way. I'm not sure if that's something that is affecting her ability to either eat or smell prey.

BUT all hope is not lost. Tonight she actually took a pink on her own off the tongs!! For the first time in like 9 months! She has also been much more active again, actually utilizing the different parts of her cage. If all goes well and we can increase the size on her (she is still very slender), I'm planning to try to find a decent vet near me to check out her mouth/physiology. I don't want to do that though until she's a bit hardier.