Not the best feeding day...

[Crawly's Mom]

So today was feeding days for the babies. I only got two good strikes out of five snakes, which makes me wonder if I am doing something wrong. Crawly didn't strike hers, which she was questionable anyway. It's been two weeks since she regurged, but I still didn't have any luck with her. Parker as always struck the second she was able and gobbled her food down like she was starving, I really love that snake and her awesome eating habits. Riddle my new cinny female took a little time but eventually struck, coiled, and ate. Lucky showed interest, but I had no strikes and the same could be said for Sinatra my new lesser cinny. I left the food in the tubs, it's been roughly 2 hours and still no go.

Sinatra may still need a little time to adjust, Lucky could be in the same boat as I have only had him a few days longer than Sinatra. Lucky was also on live rats before he came to me and I am trying to convert him to frozen thawed. I was wondering, I have heard people say that they will offer food to another snake if one doesn't take it. How long do you wait to see if they take it or is that only with live? I have no doubt in my mind if I offered another crawler to Parker she'd scarf it down.

[Kinra]

Depending on the snake I will either leave it in over night or give them an hour or two before I offer it to someone else. This is with f/t too. I've never had live prey survive more than 10 minutes in a cage before the snake wanted it.

If you have snakes in QT DO NOT offer their refused food to any of your established collection. I will offer refused food from my established collection to one of my pigs in my established collection and refused QT food gets fed to something in QT that will eat it.

You could also try feeding at night. I don't offer mine food until 9-10pm. I get great feeding responses from ~95% of my collection. I've also had a few take a few weeks before they felt comfortable eating.

[wwmjkd]

didn't you just get the pair of cinnamons this week? SOP is to leave all new arrivals alone for about a week in order to acclimate to the new environment and reduce overall stress. not trying to question your tactics, but it's hardly surprising that new arrivals aren't the most voracious eaters.

edit: heed kinra's advice as well and don't offer refused prey from a quarantined snake to any of your established collection.

p.s. how often has the one snake regurgitated? that could be an indicator of something else going on.

best of luck.

[Crawly's Mom]

Yes I got the new pair on Tuesday. I had spoken to Rob about the possibility of offering them food when I did my other snakes. They had seemed to be settling in quite well, using their hides, not searching around. I figured if they didn't eat, it wouldn't hurt anything and if they did, then great. One of the two did in fact eat.

Since Parker is the only smaller snake in my non-quarantine area I will not offer the food to anyone else. She's the only one I could see pounding down another rat right away. I swear that little spider has an appetite that just doesn't end.

Crawly has only regurgitated once. She ate on Wednesday, 11/09/11, when I checked on her the morning of Friday 11/11/11 she had regurgitated her meal. She is in a completely different area of my house, not even in the quarantine area with the other three. So I guess it has been 7 days since she regurgitated, I was counting out two feeds from when I last fed her, they're on a 5 day feeding schedule.

[Kinra]

I'm probably one of the few that doesn't see harm in offering food within the first week of having them. My lemon pastel pounded a rat the day I got her and has been a super eater ever since. If they don't eat, it's really no big deal. I don't see how a few minutes of stress from trying to feed is really going to hurt them.

With Crawly, I would wait another week before offering food and then offer something that is smaller than usual. If you can, I would probably get a fecal exam done too just to make sure there isn't something else going on that can be caught easily.

[Crawly's Mom]

I didn't push it with either of them. I just wiggled the rat to see if there was any interest. Riddle remained interested the entire time, she watched it for about two minutes, checked it out from different angles, then struck, coiled, and ate. I only got a look and a little interest from Sinatra, so I just left it there to see if he would eat, not going to push it with him. I just don't see the harm in offering it, if they are not interested, they are not interested.

The only thing I have smaller than the rat crawlers is some left over mouse fuzzies from Petsmart that I got when I first bought her. I could try offering her those next week and see if she takes them. She has not actually pooped since she regurgitated. So I am waiting for any sign of poop to bag it up and take it down to the vet.