New to the site wanted to introduce myself and family

[Renouji]

Hello my name is Ren, I enjoy a variety of hobbies and recently added snake keeping to the list lol. My fiancee was all for it, and we live with her parents who also love snakes and don't care. So back in 2012 I bought a baby snow corn I named Yuki, he was a picky eater for a while but eventually refused to eat and literally starved himself to death in mid 2012.

My first acquire is Sif, I picked her up in December 2012 and she is healthy, grown from 13 inches to 25 inches and is at least 186 grams (she recently ate 2 rat hoppers, one was for the corn but we forgot to take it out of her feeding tank so she ate them both)


My newest acquire is Thor. I got him from the same pet store on January 16th he was 37+ inches, he looked under weight and sick constantly made a popping noise. We brought him to the vet the next day and found out he had an upper RI and scale rot and was 988 grams. He kept refusing to eat but I kept trying, I kept his humidity at 45% because of his RI and scale rot. On March 2nd he finally ate a medium rat and then immediately shed (he was shedding when I got him) We went back to the vet on March 20th to find out his RI is gone and his scale rot was mostly gone and had gained weight. He ate a second rat on the 21st and now weighs in at 1256 grams at 44 inches after measuring and weighing him today. He is still in a 20 gallon quarantine tank while we await the results from his fecal which I dropped off at the vet today.


My only questions are, is Thor still underweight for his size or is he within normal range? And is there anyway to tell their age? I estimated Thor closer to 2 years but the vet suggests he closer to a year.


- with thanks in advance Ren

[Renouji]

Also Sif switched from live mice to f/t.co rat hoppers just fine but Thor refuses to make the switch, I've tried all the usual warming the rat up, chicken broth I even heard of some people having success by spiking the humidity to stimulate a feeding response all to no avail. I refuse to feed him jumbo rats live even tho Isupervise his ffeelings, do you guys have any suggestions?

[Capray]

Welcome to the forum!
Sorry about your corn.
Yeah never feed live adult rats. An adult BP could be fine on medium live rats that don't pose a threat, even live smalls, you could feed two at once.
Some snakes just refuse to switch to f/t, I suggest just feeding him live smaller rats.

[Renouji]

I will try that next feeding, ATM tho I have a medium at I need gone and I refuse to feed it to the wild cats after spending $6 for it lol.

[Renouji]

I noticed today in other posts everyone suggesting to feed them 10% of their empty body weight, so that means since Thor is 1156 grams feed him a 115 gram rat?

That would be the mediums I currently feed him, which do not leave much of a bulge in him. Although the pet store I got him from (Not a big chain just a local store) were feeding him small rats and they told me that I should feed him 1 small rat every time he poops cuz that's how BPs eat in the wild, which I immediately discounted as total bull since every book and caresheet I read says they can eat at least 1.5-2x their widest girth. So I am digressing again sorry. If I am right and 10% of his body weight barely leaves a bulge does that mean he is underweight?

[toyota89]

Feed them when they poop? Sure when some bps can go months without pooping.
For adults the 10-15% doesn't apply you only need to feed adults enough to maintain they're weight.

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[Capray]

It doesn't have to be totally exact, remember. Jus looking at a snake, it isn't hard to choose if you were to pick it's meal out of a selection of rat sizes.
He would be perfectly fine eating mediums every 5 days. Him being an adult means that he doesn't need to be fed as often. I plan on feeding adults every other week, They're sitting weight, so that's a perfectly fine maitnence diet for a non-breeding snake.

[lefty]

welcome, from a fellow Utahn. i'm guessing from the health of the snake and the terrible advice you got that you bought him at marks ark or pet planet, right?

[Renouji]

welcome, from a fellow Utahn. i'm guessing from the health of the snake and the terrible advice you got that you bought him at marks ark or pet planet, right?

Rofl you got that right. Marks Ark, tho pet planet was them till last June I think is when they sold it to that girl. I heard she turned it around.

[lefty]

HAHA, YOU HEARD WRONG....



glad you are taking the proper steps to nurse your snake back to health though. good for you.