Solomon Island Tree Boa

[weirdbuglady]

Ok I think I've got pretty good humidity.

And my parents, well, they get her a treefrog once or twice a month and make sure she's always got clean water. I make sure to remind them of feeding and misting, etc. My dad loooves snakes, in fact this snake in particular was his idea to get in the first place.

[qiksilver]

well once you get a good feeding response, you'll have a great feeder... not to take away from the focus of the thread... but my carinata girl just bit me because she thought i was feeding her!

[weirdbuglady]

Hahaha nice

My girl loves jumpy things, its the jumping of a frog that gets her going to strike, though she is not yet fooled by dangling "jumping" pinky mice. I work tomorrow and I'll get some live hoppers and see what happens.

[qiksilver]

if that's the case then hoppers should work, mine loved the spastic jump-stop-teeter-jump thing that they do. I just think it's the erratic movement that gets their attention.

[weirdbuglady]

Yeah, I've noticed some animals can really tell the difference between real movements and fake "twitching" movements that we create by moving around dead prey.

[johnst_nhb]

Hahaha nice

My girl loves jumpy things, its the jumping of a frog that gets her going to strike, though she is not yet fooled by dangling "jumping" pinky mice. I work tomorrow and I'll get some live hoppers and see what happens.

Yes, that is the idea with the hoppers. And when you switch to F/T pinkies, hover them *above* their heads. For some reason, this stimulates the feeding response even more in carinata (not all, but some).

Good to hear she is getting proper care when you are gone...not many parents are willing!

[weirdbuglady]

SHE ATE A HOPPER MOUSE!!!

We got some small mice in at the pet store today so I dangled one above her head for a moment, dropped it... she gave it one sniff and struck. I was amazed, she usually wont even do that with frogs, I thought for sure it would sit in there a few days until maybe she felt like hunting it down. And she even just ate a frog recently so I wasnt sure if she'd be hungry. Whew. I didn't think it would be that easy, haha.

I am soooooooooooo happy right now Will make it much much easier to get her to a healthy weight now.

Thanks again for all the advice

[weirdbuglady]

sigh. Well I guess I started celebrating too soon. She killed the mouse, and started to swallow it... but she couldnt get past the head, and gave up. Found the mouse lying on the bottom of the cage this morning. Guess I'll try another one in a few days, a smaller one.

It gives me hope that at least she struck and strangled it.

[johnst_nhb]

sigh. Well I guess I started celebrating too soon. She killed the mouse, and started to swallow it... but she couldnt get past the head, and gave up. Found the mouse lying on the bottom of the cage this morning. Guess I'll try another one in a few days, a smaller one.

It gives me hope that at least she struck and strangled it.

Do not be dissappointed! This is great progress.

Get another hopper and place it in the cage before you go to bed and check in the morning. Carinata are nocturnal feeders by nature so feeding at night is important-at least until they are habituated to mice. You should not need to dangle a live hopper, just put it in the cage. When you are trying to switch to F/T then you should dangle.

Is there any reason that you can think of as to why it couldn't get past the head? Was it a large mouse? If so, make sure it is a small hopper (just above fuzzy stage). This is critical to get her eating mice. After several good feeds with a hopper, you can try F/T pinkies with dangling technique (you will need to make sure the pinkies are thoroughly warm).

Interesting tidbit: My very large SITB will take a F/T rat and go through all the motions, will get that sucker 1/2 way in its mouth and regurge. However, with a F/T mouse she is ravenous. She simply will not take rats...

So, make sure you are using hopper mice! I would not attempt to feed her anything but a hopper for the next few weeks...

Good luck and keep us posted!!

[weirdbuglady]

I thought the mouse was a good size, but we have more that are small so I'll set them aside and try again in a few days. I always feed my snakes at night before I go to bed because I know most of them prefer to eat in the dark and in peace. I was really hoping it would be gone by the morning... but I won't give up.