Male not eating

[JennM]

Please bare with me

I've heard of males breeding themselves to death, and I think I have one that will. I bought him mid-last year, and he was a lean 1200g. We tried offering mice and rats every week to every two weeks. It took about 3-4 months before he finally ate (an asf at that). He ate well for maybe 2 months; then he began skipping and eventually stopped... winter hit. He's still off food and I'm starting to worry. His last meal was 12-31-09, and it was only one asf. He has grown longer and only weighs about 1100 grams now. He's getting thin. I feel he should be at least 300grams heavier. All my other males are back on feed. I've never had to deal with this. I'm thinking about tubing him if he gets much worse.

I've heard of moving the males to a different room. I'll do whatever is needed of course, but I'm hoping there are some tips or tricks that can be done without having to move him as I have new snakes quarantined all over the house atm.

I've also read where people have had males that wouldn't eat until the female they had been breeding ovulates. The girl he was breeding is building now... would it be counterproductive to put him back with her? She looks close... but I'm not sure if it will work for him.

***We did try to force feed him unsuccessfully last Thursday. I wasn't really comfortable with doing so, but we agreed we'd give it a shot. I know you're supposed to gently hook it on their teeth, but he'd just unhook it and run.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[snakesRkewl]

What is he housed in now?
Temps cool side warm side?
Belly heat?

"Some" males will stop eating during breeding season so I'm told, all of my males ate all through breeding season.

Moving them can trigger them to eat, had it happen to me last week when I sent a large female to a friends house 25 miles away, she had refused to eat for 5 months while breeding and didn't take and wouldn't eat "for me"
She ate for my friend the very night he took her in, lol.

Tubbing snakes, sounds horrible but I wouldn't keep them any other way

Good luck with him, he'll come around

[Tyler_Royality]

what are your current temps at?

hes a BP man... get used to him not eating :]

[JennM]

Up until a month ago he was housed in a 28qt sterilite. Heat tape ran under tub. 93 hot and 84 cool.

I recently switched him to a rack that has no heat. Vision v-35. Room temp is 83ish give or take a degree. I was hoping that changing his environment a bit would do the trick. No luck as of yet. I even offered a gerbil after I heard that they can be favored more than asf's.

But yes... he is a ball. I'm not one to freak after a few missed meals. I've dealt with them going off feed for 4-6 months, etc, but this guy has never eaten well for me and has been off feed for the last 6.5 months. I am not sure how many more months he can go without. He's pretty thin and only thinking about the ladies.


***Maybe changing his bedding would work? He's currently on newspaper.

[A.VinczeBPs]

His weight drop is only 100grams. That's not a huge amount, and isn't something to be worried about.
I had a 1000gram male drop to 900, and he just ate last week after his last feeding in September.
Tips are, move him way from females. Keep it dark and quiet. Try another ASF. Be prepared to wait another month or longer.

If you cannot wait it out, then prepare for unnecessary stress. They will, and often do this.

If he drops a lot of weight (goes down to about 800 grams or less) then be worried. Until then do not try to assist or force-feed, you will just stress him out more.

[JennM]

100grams is normally not a lot to lose true. But like I said in my original post, he's been growing. He's grown about 7" since we've got him, which is why I posted this. My b/f actually said he's the length of our fire male which is a lean/fit 1800grams. So he's really thin.

I'll see if I can move him to another part of the house though. It'll be a pain. I have other new snakes quarantined everywhere.