Another sporadic post by yours truly! This a positive one however, as my snake Icculus has finally eaten! Only downside to this being... he's eaten mice. Below is my theory on why this has happened:

When I am in Chicago living with my parents, I live in a nice house with a high standard of cleanliness and low occurrance of small rodent poplulation flare ups.

Here in Nashvegas with my musician friends at college (I just graduated in Dec.) we live in a P.O.S house that is more conducive to collecting beer cans and rodent problems than studying.

Icculus last ate the first week of December. I was concerned enough by October to take him to the vet and he got a clean bill of health. Excellent girth, excellent skin condition, clear eyes etc. I was trying to feed him rats (as had been his previous three meals) and he simply wouldn't eat- wouldn't even strike. Then it clicked - all these mice.. well not really all these, but I've cought at least seven... yuck... anyways, it clicked that perhaps Icculus had gotten a whiff of his old dinner and missed it.

I relented and purchased some mice from my local herp stop (they buy bulk from Rodent Pro - as do I at home in Chi town). He is gobblin' them up! I found out part of it was a heat issue. I normally thaw by just taking them out of the freezer after work and letting them sit near the cage until ten or eleven pm. He missed his first strike though, so I grabbed a hair dryer and warmed up the head of the mouse for about two minutes. I always check to make sure nothing is frozen but I guess the head wasn't warm enough because WHAP! He nailed it again tonight. So he has finally started eating (at least the past two weeks) though it's mice. So lets try scenting again shall we?


Sorry so long - hope it helps someone sometime.. please ignore typos and or grammatical ignorance haha.
-Jonah