funny yet sad feeding attempt...

[FrankieCarbone]

i dont know if most of u remember from previous post, but i have a fear of rodents, and feeding my BP is a big ordel for me, and consists of me wearing leather gloves and opening the little box thing the mouse comes in and pushing him into the tank, if he dosent take it it takes me like a hour and a few drinks just to dig into the tank (while still wearing my leather gloves of course) and grabbing that disgusting rodent by the tail and placing him back into the box and disposing of it. Well i havent had any issues lately cuz of course my BP has been fasting and mainly eating 1 mouse a month, 1 out of the 3 or so i offer, well he has come out of, or atleast i thought so, his winter fasting and has been out of his hide alot and took one mouse down with authority, and showed he was still hungry so 2 days later fed another and destroyed it, and then another again in 3 days. So i was like good, finally hes come out of it, and 5 days later i tried again, well this time he did not go for it. So of course after 5-10 minutes of not showing much interest in the mouse, and retreating back into his hide after the mouse got close to him i knew of course he wasent gonna take it. But ill be damn, if this was one of those "smart" mouses, u know the ones that get up close to the snakes head, takes a wiff, realizes that he is in a tank with a predator then runs away, well this mouse was the worse, i was trying to grab his tail but as soon as i got close he did one of those fast sprints to get away from my hand like a house mouse does when u turn on the lights. Then after a few minutes of me trying to catch him, he really got scared and started jumping trying to escape! At that point i was like dammit, trying to catch him but as soon as he tried to jump up and out of tank i immediatley jerked away. Meanwhile my bp is neatly tucked and barricaded in his hide. Well finally i had to, yeh this is embarassing, but i had to take a piece of plexi glass from my previous setup and used it to slide into the front of the hide of where my bp was to ensure he could;t get out, and i, yes, threw in a glue trap on the side by where the mouse was, the manipulated him with this long rod from the curtains in my room to run around until he finally got caught in the glue trap where i finally was able to snatch him up.

I feel like i should be wearing a skirt. Anyways just a embarassing moment i felt like sharing. Atleast none of you guys can laugh right to my face

[I-KandyReptiles]

You should only be feeding him once every 5-7 days :/

[FrankieCarbone]

i knew somebody would point that out. No worries, im not a newbie BP owner, i know what im doing, and yes, u are right the last 3 feedings were too close together, but IMO its justified, given he is at nearly 1100grams, turned 1 in may, and has been feeding the last few months on 20-30g mouses once a month and LOOSING weight; Not significantly, but still there has been weight loss. I have not been feeding him like this always, this has been the only time i fed him 2 days later after a feeding, and that was because i SHOULD have fed him 2 mice that day, but i did;t think he was gonna take it at all so it was only one, the second feeding was a bit to soon (2 days) but the third feeding was at a descent 4 days wait. And the one he refused was 5 days later.

[HaikyFin]

He should be eating rats - which are far easier to handle. Mice are the biggest pain - I hate them. A rat I don't mind handling at all, you rarely get biters, and most are extremely friendly and almost sweet.

You need to bump this snake up to rats. You're underfeeding the heck out of him - and you say he's losing weight. A medium sized rat every two weeks or so is where he should be (experts should check me on this), it's borderline abuse to underfeed this guy like that.

If the mice scare you, why don't you feed f/t? And please make your posts more literate. It's ridiculous, your punctuation, when you prove yourself capable of using words like "significantly", "justified" and "disposing" correctly. You're clearly not dumb, stop typing like you are. (Harsh, perhaps, but there is no excuse for it)

[dragonsong93]

I'd put him on rats, actually...I'd put him on frozen/thawed rats! If you don't like rodents I think dead ones would be a LOT easier to handle.

[gsarchie]

What dragonsong said!

[SRMD]

x2 what dragon said

[FrankieCarbone]

wow, what turned out to be a quick post about a funny situation turned serious quick, but I will explain.

HaikyFin,

I’m not a English professor like you, but I am pretty sure the definition of the word abuse goes something along the lines of you purposely intended harm. As in I know I should be feeding him rats but just don’t care to do so and keep feeding him mice, or as in, I know his humidity is supposed to be above 50's but I am too lazy to spray his tank down, as in, I am sitting by letting him starve and KNOW it and just don’t care to do anything about it. That sounds about right for abuse. Here is what doesn’t sound like abuse. His setup up is PERFECT. And when I say perfect, I seriously mean perfect, and you can see it in the pictures in my profile but ill run it down real quick for you. 29g H aquarium, 1/4 inch plexi glass cover under the cage top to keep in humidity in, 2 digital thermometer, one in the cold side and one in the hot side, 2 Identical hides, aspen bedding with plenty of decor to make him feel secure, a water dish big enough for him to do what he wants with it (drink, soak, whatever), a ultratherm UTH on the warm side hooked up to a herpstat keeping it at a steady 88-89 degrees so says my PE-2 Temp gun, temperatures which I check every 2 days. Oh and the back and sides of the tank are blacked out. Ambient temps are checked twice a day if not more if I am not working that day, and fresh bottled water in the water dish which is changed everyday (I work for coca cola so I get free cases of water). And HaikyFin a whole paragraph on how I need to correct my spelling and punctuations on my post? I mean you actually sat there and wrote a whole paragraph just to point that out? Seriously???

Folks for the year or so I was on this board I never knew I had to spell check and make sure my grammar is spot on, I though the important thing here was to talk about the issue your having and get some feedback from members that have been thru this and can help.

Dragonsong93,

I have tried switching him over to rats, he actually was destroying small rats within the first few months I got him but he slowly started turning them down. Right before winter he just never took them at all, he would come out of his hide during feeding time take a few licks at the rat and retreat to his hide. With a mouse he would come out take a few licks then strike so I know the reason he wasn’t taking them was BECAUSE they were rats. I tried the leaving a rat in dirty mice bedding overnight trick a few times and still got nothing. So it came to a point where it was either mice or he would not eat. So it seemed best to just give him what he wants, since its better he eat something then nothing at all, you know BP's are picky eaters as it is, I was just reading on a post about how one guy just had his BP come off a 9 month hunger strike, and I would rather be the guy who has a BP that even though is not eating what he should be eating, he’s at least eating something every few weeks, as supposed to nothing for almost a year.

As far a f/t my living conditions wont allow it. I live in a small cramped pretty much studio apartment and I simply cannot have a pack of dead rats in the fridge I use (which I share) The only way that would ever work is if I was to go to petland and buy a pack of f/t and just use one of them and throw away the rest. So that’s not going to happen.

Now I have to copy this whole post and paste it onto my MS Word, spell check it, and paste it back here. I wouldn’t want to get a F on this post from Professor HaikyFin!

[rebelrachel13]

Okay, there is no need for this type of conflict. I don't understand why things like this always turn into fights. HaikyFin -- this isn't YouTube comments, it's a forum. I see no need for correcting the OP's grammar the way you did. It's impertinent to the topic and very rude.

29g H aquarium, 1/4 inch plexi glass cover under the cage top to keep in humidity in, 2 digital thermometer, one in the cold side and one in the hot side, 2 Identical hides, aspen bedding with plenty of decor to make him feel secure, a water dish big enough for him to do what he wants with it (drink, soak, whatever), a ultratherm UTH on the warm side hooked up to a herpstat keeping it at a steady 88-89 degrees so says my PE-2 Temp gun, temperatures which I check every 2 days. Oh and the back and sides of the tank are blacked out. Ambient temps are checked twice a day if not more if I am not working that day, and fresh bottled water in the water dish which is changed everyday (I work for coca cola so I get free cases of water).

Sounds good! It's always helpful when trying to determine the source of a problem to know a snake's setup. The source isn't your setup, it would seem.

Folks for the year or so I was on this board I never knew I had to spell check and make sure my grammar is spot on, I though the important thing here was to talk about the issue your having and get some feedback from members that have been thru this and can help.

I agree with this completely.

As far a f/t my living conditions wont allow it. I live in a small cramped pretty much studio apartment and I simply cannot have a pack of dead rats in the fridge I use (which I share) The only way that would ever work is if I was to go to petland and buy a pack of f/t and just use one of them and throw away the rest. So that’s not going to happen.

You could always get a cheap mini-fridge and stuff it in a corner somewhere. That's a great way to keep f/t separate from food and save space.

I think you could be a little more open with trying feeding techniques, but otherwise, you're doing fine. There is no wrong way to feed. It's not awful to feed him as often as you do, considering mice won't take long to digest compared to rats. As long as he's eating something, that's good. You can't overfeed a BP on a diet of mice. If you ever decide to try f/t, a little zombie dance goes a loooong way. I think it would be worth trying in your situation.

[FrankieCarbone]

rebelrachel13

yeh, i usually dont get so defensive, but when i see the word "borderline abuse" used towards me, i just lost it. I give so much for my BP, time, money, well everything, and go out of my way to make sure he has it all and that he is happy and healthy, to have somebody say something like that, no way.

anyways moving on from that, the small fridge setup up also wont work, as where i live i dont even have a a/c cuz this building is so badly put together (i live in NYC) that since every other tenant has a a/c and the abusers on the 1st floor have 3 a/c in one apartment, if i connect anything that sucks up so much energy (such as a a/c or fridge in this case) it flips the breakers and everything shuts down. Hell, i barely get away with a space heater in the winter time when the regular heat dosent work.

I'am going to try a small rat again, just to see if i get lucky, but i usually do not like to do that, because if i throw in a rat and he refuses, he usually gets into like a panic mode for like 10 days, where he wont even come out of his hide at all. As opposed to mice, where if he refuses a mice, i can try again in 4 days and he might take it. But ill take a chance and give it one more try. I might get lucky, its been a long time since i offered a rat. Maybe he forgot he dosent like them