Jungle Carpet Addicted to Live Prey

[jjspirko]

OK this is not a big issue really just wondering if there is anything I have not tried. I have a young female JCP that is about 3 feet long now. I got her well started but the breeder was feeding here live mice. I have tried over and over to switch her. I have tried letting her go a month with out food before breaking down and giving her a live mouse and no dice.

I have tried killing a live mouse seconds before offering it to her as a transition and it does not work. I can feed her stunned mice and she will take them but unless there is a heart beat she just seems to have no interest.

I will keep trying a fresh killed at each feeding but other then that I may just be stuck. I have no issues with feeding live, this is a convenience issue for me. I don't want to keep a lot of rodents live in my home and drivin to the store weekly is a pain in the rear,

Any ideas? Anyone have a stubborn half grown one they got off live before? It is not that big a problem she slams live prey and eats very well with them, I would just like to get her switched if I can,

[bearhart]

I've got a JCP I got full grown that's prolly about 5 1/2' long. This is my only JCP and I only feed F/T to my corn so I can't answer your question directly. However, there aren't that many people around here to talk carpets with so I can't resist taking advantage of the situation.

I can verify a similar experience in terms of mine being a strong feeder. More than that, I find my JCP to be a very visceral snake in every respect. (If you've seen Pulp Fiction - remember what it said on Samuel L. Jackson's wallet?) I've witnessed several feedings that left my heart pounding in my chest. So, while I consider him to be a very strong feeder, I would not be surprised if the taking of live prey was integral to the feeding experience for him.

I've got a question about mine. Since I've gotten him his activity level has gone down considerably. I've got him a great setup and he used to like to crawl on his branches for an hour or two in the night. But for the last month or two he's really taken to hanging out in his cool hide. I had been steadily upping his diet so I suspect that that may be it. I've been giving him small rats for two weeks now and it seems like it *may* be helping. Do you have any recommendations for feeding frequency and amount for a snake like this?

Also, do you have pics of yours?

[jjspirko]

Well, thanks for your input. Good to hear I don't have the only stubborn JCP about eating live only. I also know what you man about the way they attack prey. Vicious and very quick. I dangle the victem by the tail with tongs and am amazed at the speed of the strike. That said she is a sweatheart with being handled etc. No fear, not nervous and never offers to bite or even get in any way defensive. Over all a great snake.

On the activity level I can only guess but this is my instinct based on my experience with many snakes over about twenty five years. Generally an active snake is hungry, looking for a mate or is simply in need of something. When all their needs are met they tend to just sit where ever they find the most comfortable temps. If he is on the cool side that is just what he wants at the moment, perhaps your house temps are a bit higher and that has raised the viv temps?

The reality is all snake have periods of calm and periods of heavy activity for no apparent reason. I am curently keeping about forty odd snakes and of those I have had for more then an year just about all weather hungry or not have gone on spurts of activity and spruts of doing absoultely nothing almost no movement at all for days.

My JCP in particular does what you mention often in the evening she comes out, cruises a bit then climbs into her PVC tree and chills and then some time during the night she seems to go back into her hide. Right now both my JCP and my pair of spotted pythons are all spending most of their hide time in the cool hides even with full bellies. So may be it is just the time for that for Aussy Pythons.

Anyway glad to meet you and ask me anything you like about carpets, I am not as experienced with them as many other species but it is fun to talk and it is a great way to learn,

[MPenn]

Jack,


It has been quite a long time since I have had a stubborn carpet feeder. The last one I had was an adult male Irian Jaya. He was not on live but rather just on mice. I needed to switch him to rats. I actually had to practically starve him to get him to switch. It took a year, but I finally did. It is for this reason that I only try to sell f/t feeders.

Back to your question. Have you tried the bait and switch?? You would have a nicely warmed f/t mouse and a live mouse. Try teasing her with the live one and then offer her the f/t one. Not always effective but works sometimes.
You can also try this one: Give her the live one, let her kill it and constrict it. As she starts her searching for the head to eat, switch it out for the f/t one.
Then again, sometimes this only works with a fasting.

[jjspirko]

Thanks for the tips and dude just know I most likely would have bought an IJ or CC from you had you been at the show I picked up this girl at. I just took pitty on her, here she was a pure VPI line JCP but in the eyes of most, "ugly" even the breeder called her that. She ain't ugly but the technical term is what I think they call "muddy". She was past the I will bite you cause you move stage that most JCPs have so that made it all the better then the 100 dollar price put it over the top.

Cool ideas and yea part of why I am trying to get this bugger on FT is because I already know that the rat swicth can be a tough thing.

I will try the bait and switch! That might work but the allow her to kill and constrict I don't think I can do that. Why? I got to give this gal credit she is one effective killer. Always a head shot! Soon as the mouse stops squirming she is in swallow mode and I just don't think I can get the damn thing back from her. She is on two per feed so what I might be able to do is get a nice FT and give it too her as soon as the first tail goes down. Perhaps if I give her a good two weeks with no food and try that I can get that to work if your Bait and Switch does not.

I got my one hold out house snake on FT and even got my Dumerils Boa on FT with very little trouble. Again it is just an issue that I don't like driving to the store to get the little buggers, if she doesn't switch ever I will just deal with it.

I should probably do a youtub vid of her turning down PK mice and then slamming a live one for all the little twerps that tear down anyone on youtube that feeds a snake a live fricken mouse. I have nothing against mice, they just have a place in the world and for many it is eventually the inside of a .

[Kom@tose]

This probably doesn't help you at all but I wanted to share my experience on this.


A year ago I bought a hatcling JCP that was being fed live hopper mice. I fed it live hoppers for about 4-5 weeks before trying to convert it to (live) rat fuzzies. This has been and still was (up to 2 weeks ago) the only snake that I fed live, because I had heard so many horror stories of people who have had major headaches switching their carpets from mice to rats, that I figured I'd just take what I could get. I tried a p/k fuzzy rat a couple of times, but after that I just moved on. When I finally got it on rat fuzzies, and she started growing up, I switched from fuzzies to pups, then from pups to small rats. Still every week when I would feed her, I said to myself "these rats are getting bigger, one of these days somethings going to happen."

Well 2 weeks ago, it happened. I dropped it in, she struck, and didn't wrap far enough down the body to get the rat in such a position that its coils were out of the way of the rats mouth and it bit her. Enough to draw blood. Anyway, after freaking out, cancelling a date to take my daughter and her mom to dinner (which I'm still hearing about), and taking it to the store to have him looked at by the guy who hatched her out, it turned out that she was fine. No scar, not a scale out of place. I said that night that if she didn't eat p/k from then on, she wouldn't eat.

Last week I offered her a p/k rat and she took it after about 10 seconds of dangling it. Yesterday I fed p/k again, same thing. I feel/felt pretty stupid. Like I said, sorry for the lack of help, I just wanted to share. Since you don't have issues with live (me neither, really. no big issues at least), maybe if you wait it out, feed live and offer p/k every few weeks she might decide to take it one day? Other than that, my IJCP has always fed p/k with no problems.

Anyway,

[bonheki]

i have a jcp i just got him about 2 weeks ago hes really cool mine eats great hes about 2 feet long and about 3 months in a half old hes big enought to eat hoppers allready i think he will grow about 7 1/2 feet but you should just try to give your jcp a hooper alive and seee what happens

[Kennyxemerson]

I can't wait to get mine

[jjspirko]

i have a jcp i just got him about 2 weeks ago hes really cool mine eats great hes about 2 feet long and about 3 months in a half old hes big enought to eat hoppers allready i think he will grow about 7 1/2 feet but you should just try to give your jcp a hooper alive and seee what happens

I just don't get what you are tying to say? My snake is about 3 feet long and slamming adult mice no problem. Why in the world would I feed her hoppers? The issues is that I can't get her on PK mice not that I can't get her to eat.

[bearhart]

Well, thanks for your input. Good to hear I don't have the only stubborn JCP about eating live only. I also know what you man about the way they attack prey. Vicious and very quick. I dangle the victem by the tail with tongs and am amazed at the speed of the strike. That said she is a sweatheart with being handled etc. No fear, not nervous and never offers to bite or even get in any way defensive. Over all a great snake.

On the activity level I can only guess but this is my instinct based on my experience with many snakes over about twenty five years. Generally an active snake is hungry, looking for a mate or is simply in need of something. When all their needs are met they tend to just sit where ever they find the most comfortable temps. If he is on the cool side that is just what he wants at the moment, perhaps your house temps are a bit higher and that has raised the viv temps?

The reality is all snake have periods of calm and periods of heavy activity for no apparent reason. I am curently keeping about forty odd snakes and of those I have had for more then an year just about all weather hungry or not have gone on spurts of activity and spruts of doing absoultely nothing almost no movement at all for days.

My JCP in particular does what you mention often in the evening she comes out, cruises a bit then climbs into her PVC tree and chills and then some time during the night she seems to go back into her hide. Right now both my JCP and my pair of spotted pythons are all spending most of their hide time in the cool hides even with full bellies. So may be it is just the time for that for Aussy Pythons.

Anyway glad to meet you and ask me anything you like about carpets, I am not as experienced with them as many other species but it is fun to talk and it is a great way to learn,

I have been improving his hide setup. He previously didn't have a very good cool side hide so I'm sure its more attractive now.

Also, I've been experimenting with temps. Lately I've been keeping the cool side about 77 and the warm about 85. I had it warmer previously simply because I was used to making sure my BP was cozy warm.

I feed weekly and have been lowering the size of prey (rat). Today I fed him a rat that was right on the border between "small" and "medium". He is as thick or thicker than a 12oz soda can for a good portion of his body and can easily eat two jumbo rats in a single sitting.