W/C finally ate

[littleindiangirl]

We have had this WC in our care since the beginning of June, and she has refused to eat since then. We tried every single way to house her, from the 32 quart blinded tub, to the tall tub with 4 inches of cypress and an underground hide, blinded. Anything to simulate her in the wild and make her feel comfortable. We would feed her a f/t; feed it off the tongs, or lay it next to her tub. When we tried live [teenager size] she was very interested and struck, missed. So we took that as her being stressed still.

She doesn't show any more signs of "Lights are on, but nobody's home." [from VPI's guide] Every Saturday she waits to be offered a rat, she's in hunting mode.

A few weeks ago, we put her in a 41 qt blinded, fed f/t laid next to hide, still no go.

Finally 1 week ago we put her back in a 32 qt, newspaper, no blind. still no L.O.N.H syndrome, she's aware and ready. We decided we were going to house her like all the other snakes.

I've recently had 2 litters of 15 ea. so we fed everyone 2 weeks old rats last night. She was the 3rd to be fed, drop in the rat, and within a minute, WHAM!! She slammed that thing and put him down quick. After about 15 minutes, dropped another one in and she didn't hesitate for a second! Just got that second one again and made us proud.

I'm very excited that she finally ate, after every different way we tried to feed her, the normal tub set up worked just fine. It could be the size we were feeding her just was too big. She's a big girl herself, and has only lost a total of 90-100 grams since she's been with us, bringing her down to 1280 at the beginning of a\August. We would always feed her the small rat, around 50-60 grams, we never thought it would be too much for her. But apparently a 2 week old has put her back on feed. She'll be fed live babes until we can work her back up to the small rat size. Hopefully everything goes well from here.

[dr del]

Hi,


Congratulations in finding the trigger that flicks her switch.

It's great to hear of someone taking the time to work with a w/c to that extent and knowing that she has a new happy life stretching ahead of her.


dr del

[Reediculous]

Hi,


Congratulations in finding the trigger that flicks her switch.

It's great to hear of someone taking the time to work with a w/c to that extent and knowing that she has a new happy life stretching ahead of her.


dr del

could not agree more!

congrats.....this is great news!

[frankykeno]

Funny you'd mention the "strikes and missed thing". We've seen that in both the WC adults we've worked with and I don't think it's a miss at all. I think they are just stressed and it's a defensive strike rather than a true attempt to feed. Two week old rats are what has worked to get both our WC adults to start eating again, as well as just time and a quiet hands off approach. Once we get them taking those big fuzzies/small pups we just gradully move them up to a more appropriate prey size.


Congrats on getting yours to eat!

[muddoc]

I will second Jo. I would bet that the strike and a miss is not that at all. I have 5 WC adults in my collection, and have one in particular that is a good eater. However, she will occassionaly not eat. When she is not hungry, she will strike the rat repeatedly if it gets near her (note: you better watch that rat when you take it out, because it is not a happy camper). I have another that did not eat for 55 weeks when we got her, but finally she decided she was hungry one day and ate a mouse. It has been all downhill since then, she has gained about 900 grams in the last year. One last note, if I read correctly, you offered a F/T meal to your WC snake. It will probably take a little while to get him/her to eat F/T, as they do not get meals like that in the wild. I do find that my WC animals have a much stronger feeding response after they start eating, and do convert to F/T easier (at least that has been my limited experience). Hope some of this helps, and I'm glad to hear that your animal ate for you.

[littleindiangirl]

This is all true, I mentioned that we took the rat away because she did seem very stressed with it in her enclosure, hence the strike and miss, or rather defensive strike.

The F/t idea came from reading on VPI's website. Their method is to leave a f/t rat next to the hide opening once every week. They leave it overnight I believe, and eventually the WC will finally eat. We gave it a shot.

Like I said, we tried everything, and I'm hoping she will continue to eat. We're moving everyone over to live, so it will make everything easier in the future. I really enjoy the challenge of a wild caught.

Thanks everybody! I can't wait till next saturday to feed again, hopefully things keep looking up for her!

[Royalherper]

Great Job! The w/c can be real stubborn. I've had a w/c female for about 13 yrs. She wouldn't eat anything. After about 3 months of trying every feeding scenario I could think of, I tried a gerbil. Thats was the ticket. She quickly went to rats after that. Persistance pays off, Nice job.