BP on strike, how can I get her eating again?

[Sorrelfeather27]

So I bought a young BP back in March. She has always ate live, and was in a tub. When I got her I put her in a tank, and offered her f/t. She took it twice, then stopped eating for a month, took one, stopped eating for a month, then took 2 and has almost stopped eating for 2 months... I thought maybe the tank was stressing her out so I moved her back to a tub, her ambient temperature is 81, her hot spot is 89. Humidity is 51. I just feel like im failing her horribly. She hasn't lost weight ( she's only 113 grams.. ) I've taken her to a vet and they said she's healthy. No mites or anything. the breeder said she should be a year in late October.
I just want to get her to eat and be happy. Should I keep offering her f/t or just switch to live or prekilled?

[rufretic]

Some animals just don't have a strong feeding response so getting them to eat consistently can be difficult especially if you're offering f/t. So you either need to be extremely patient with them or change what you're offering to get a better response. Considering how little yours is, at this point your main focus should be on getting her to gain weight no matter what food you need to offer. I would start offering a live rat pup weekly. If she doesn't show a better feeding response then go to a live mouse. Once she is up to a healthy weight and eating consistently, then you can always try switching her back to f/t. I've actually noticed it's much easier to convert them to f/t when they are eating consistently on a weekly basis.

[FollowTheSun]

I am not an expert at all here, I only have 2 BP's. I can just share my experience. My daughter's adult female BP didn't eat for nearly 8 months and finally ended her strike. We followed all of the expert advice on this forum, which was interesting, but she didn't eat. Some of it was as follows:

-- make sure first of all that conditions were perfect (temps, humidity, warm and cool hides, etc).
-- rearrange things in the cage
-- take for snake a car ride
-- let snake crawl around outside and get some sun
-- blow dryer trick on frozen/thawed rat

The snake continued to look healthy, and she was admittedly quite hefty when she started the strike, so we didn't take her to the vet, although as time went on we were tempted.

Last month my partner got involved to try to help my daughter, who was very worried about her snake. He gave the snake a live mouse. He didn't want to give a rat because he was worried about injury, and he supervised the whole time. The snake was only mildly interested, but she got really pissed off when the mouse entered her hide (she's very cage defensive) so she then killed it and dropped it. Didn't eat it. (I would have recommended a baby rat but he did this on his own and didn't tell us because he didn't want us to feel bad about making a live animal go through a traumatic experience. )

Next he read up on BP more and learned that they found gerbils irritable. He told me he bought one, for $15, at the only place in town that sells gerbils. He first rubbed the frozen rat in gerbil litter, but the snake didn't care. And again, without telling me, he put the live gerbil in the cage the next night. The snake killed it and then ate it but not very enthusiastically. But at least she ate. So my daughter stopped freaking out.

Then two weeks later a frozen rat was rejected. Then two weeks after that she finally ate a frozen rat appropriate to her size. She was not enthusiastic, and she basically ate it in the middle of the night after we gave up on her and just left it in the cage.

We are only going to offer every 2 weeks for awhile to make sure she's hungry, and if she consistently takes them, maybe offer more often if acts hungry.

So basically, our lesson is unless your snake is sick, they will eventually eat again on their own. You just have to be patient. They are picky, inconsistent eaters, but I figure a healthy snake will not let itself starve to death.

[Cheesenugget]

I am not an expert at all here, I only have 2 BP's. I can just share my experience. My daughter's adult female BP didn't eat for nearly 8 months and finally ended her strike. We followed all of the expert advice on this forum, which was interesting, but she didn't eat. Some of it was as follows:

-- make sure first of all that conditions were perfect (temps, humidity, warm and cool hides, etc).
-- rearrange things in the cage
-- take for snake a car ride
-- let snake crawl around outside and get some sun
-- blow dryer trick on frozen/thawed rat

The snake continued to look healthy, and she was admittedly quite hefty when she started the strike, so we didn't take her to the vet, although as time went on we were tempted.

Last month my partner got involved to try to help my daughter, who was very worried about her snake. He gave the snake a live mouse. He didn't want to give a rat because he was worried about injury, and he supervised the whole time. The snake was only mildly interested, but she got really pissed off when the mouse entered her hide (she's very cage defensive) so she then killed it and dropped it. Didn't eat it. (I would have recommended a baby rat but he did this on his own and didn't tell us because he didn't want us to feel bad about making a live animal go through a traumatic experience. )

Next he read up on BP more and learned that they found gerbils irritable. He told me he bought one, for $15, at the only place in town that sells gerbils. He first rubbed the frozen rat in gerbil litter, but the snake didn't care. And again, without telling me, he put the live gerbil in the cage the next night. The snake killed it and then ate it but not very enthusiastically. But at least she ate. So my daughter stopped freaking out.

Then two weeks later a frozen rat was rejected. Then two weeks after that she finally ate a frozen rat appropriate to her size. She was not enthusiastic, and she basically ate it in the middle of the night after we gave up on her and just left it in the cage.

We are only going to offer every 2 weeks for awhile to make sure she's hungry, and if she consistently takes them, maybe offer more often if acts hungry.

So basically, our lesson is unless your snake is sick, they will eventually eat again on their own. You just have to be patient. They are picky, inconsistent eaters, but I figure a healthy snake will not let itself starve to death.

An adult bp not eating is not the same as a baby not eating. While both can refuse food due to stress/husbandry issues, babies normally eat very well after it had settled down and husbandry is fixed. Their job is to grow as fast as they can as they would in the wild. Then, once it reaches at a good weight of a year old or older, it will slow down and even start fasting due to reasons like breeding or it wants to stop eating. Adults will not eat if it choose not to even if all the stars and moons in the universe lined up and a unicorn of a rat wrapped with a ribbon falls on its lap. Babies, however, will eat when all is right.

Another reason why it is important keep babies eating is that they don't have as much fat reserves on them to wait out a strike like adults do.

So skip the f/t for now. Babies and picky eaters are more convinced when given a live prey. Make sure your husbandry is on point first though, then wait a week and offer a live rat fuzzy or whatever size it should be on but a bit smaller. If it won't take the rat, try a mouse next week. Some snakes prefer mice over rats.

Once it starts to eat consistently, gain some weight, then work your way back up to f/t.

[FollowTheSun]

Adults will not eat if it choose not to even if all the stars and moons in the universe lined up and a unicorn of a rat wrapped with a ribbon falls on its lap.

[Bogertophis]

Maybe send her to dr del? I think he's on to something?

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...ht-I-was-a-rat




Sorry, I don't mean to make light of your frustration...I KNOW first-hand how hard some BPs can be to get feeding regularly.
But a little levity sometimes helps one's perspective...it can feel like "forever" when a snake won't eat, but usually it works out.