Need some advice on feeding our little Jungle Carpet

[jenstet]

My son purchased a 6 month old little Jungle boy on January 7th. He's been fairly feisty but is a bit more bark than bite once we get him out of his enclosure. The last time he ate with the breeder was on January 1st.
We have tried feeding him two times with no success. The first we took him out of the enclosure and fed him in another bin. I think that he was so stressed from being moved he wasn't concerned with eating. The second we tried what I call "mouse puppetry". We have forceps and wiggle the mouse a bit in front of him. This time he was in his perch in the viv. I thought maybe he would like to approach from above. Then, we nipped the top of the fuzzy's head and he showed a bit of interest but again nothing, then we left it in there thinking maybe he would just like some privacy. I should add that he struck at the food once during each attempt but he could have been striking at the forceps. He hit the mouse but didn't grab it in his mouth.
I've been reading a bunch about different methods to entice them to eat but I guess my question is more about how stressed these guys may get. I don't want to push if he just needs a little more time to adjust. We did leave him for a week to settle.

- should we only try to feed him once a week? or every 3 or 4 days or so?
- how long can he go without eating? He's little. 49 grams when we got him.
- will he just get hungry enough eventually?

We have a corn snake that is so easy to feed and rarely misses a meal. We've heard what voracious eaters these guys can be so we are a little bit thrown by him not wanting to eat yet.
thank you in advance

[bigt0006]

Im not sure why hes not eating carpets are usually garbage disposales. Im new to the carpet game only had mine a little over a month. How long have you had him? Maybe hes still getting used to his new home. If hes not eating make sure you dont handle him till he eats as handling can stress him and may result in him not eating

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 2

[eatgoodfood]

I have a Morelia spilota mcdowli that did not eat once out of the egg for its owner. It was 11 grams when I got it and probably had not eaten for four weeks. I managed to get it to take one pink and then it refused for another month or so although it would bite anything that would come near it, any food would be immediately dropped. I was getting concerned and almost to the point of assist feeding.

I spent probably 30 minutes one night enticing it to eat. I wound up dispatching a mouse pink and then cut it and soaked the head of the pink in the blood. I then held it with forceps and kept the pink at the mouth of the snake non stop, eventually it grabbed it. As it was swallowing I followed with a second to make sure I got some food in it. Its been eating frozen pinks ever since.

Another thing you could try is scenting the pinks with a chick, I have heard this helps. Another thing is do not stress the animal, make sure the cage is in low traffic area, and it has the ability to hide, and of course do not handle until its eating regularly. You can feed every few (3-4) days, I have noticed my carpets have much faster metabolisms than balls and usually defecate weekly.

[jenstet]

Alright, I'll have my son stop the handling until he eats. I'll look into some of the scenting techniques because that seems to be the next logical step.
Thank you for your suggestions.

[KMG]

One technique is called braining. You simply stab the skull which allows all the juicy goodness entice the snake. Just a small hole will do with a lite squeeze afterward to get just alittle fluid to come out.

You can try to feed to often and to long, both of which will add to stress. I would suggest 4 day offerings and nothing longer than 10 minutes.

I dont know the cage setup but if it is glass sided I would cover them to add to privacy. Thick paper will do. Also a cage that is to large can be an issue . GTP babies are usually kept in around a 1 foot cube style cage and I would imagine a carpet to be about the same.

Sharing more about the setup may help us resolve the problem.

[jenstet]

I have him in a 20 gallon long with a UTH on a thermostat. He has a ceramic bulb. In the hot spot it gets to be 90-92. I have the uth set at 90 but he doesn't go in that hide at all. I figure it helps heat the tank a little so I leave it on. The ambient temperature on the hotter end is 80. The ambient temperature on the cool end is 73. He is always on the hot side of the tank but we situated the vines so he can really manage how much heat he needs from the basking lamp. He has a hot hide and a cool hide as well as a bunch of greenery he likes to lay about in. He doesn't actually use the hides though. He is out all the time. Actually he did just start tucking down between the wall of the tank and this rock platform we have in there. He's essentially made his own hide for during the day. At night he is out basking on vines or the rock platform. The humidity is something I work with. I end up spraying 3 times a week and it stays at around 30-50. I've read that that is fine but then other people say it's too low. He does have a huge water dish to help with this. I cover the tank with a piece of vinyl to keep the humidity a bit higher. He has
We tried to feed him last night and we slit the head. He gets tensed up and he flicked a bit where the slit was. A few times I thought he was going to do it but then he backs off and just waits for us to leave.
I've been in contact with the breeder and she seemed unconcerned.
He is coming from the standard breeder set-up. A rack system. Also there were no kids in her house but of course I have two boys. It is my son's room but they spend little time in there during the day. It is a pretty low traffic place to be...considering how the rest of the house is
I like your idea of covering the outside with paper to give him the sense of being more enclosed. I will try that and then we will try to feed towards the end of the week. We have an expo coming up and I'm hoping to get some face time with the breeder as well as some more food.
I do think we are spending too much time trying to feed. Close to 30 minutes each time. I will be sure to shorten it.

[crazypythonlady]

I had this issue with my IJ boy he ate the first week home them fasted for two weeks until I realized he like to eat at night not much unlike my GTP like 10 at night. Also be careful not to over do it with the food when he does start to eat you want him to be long and lean not fat. Mine weighed in at 30 grams when I purchased him in September and even with his fasting and me feeding weekly his is now up to 80 grams as of the Dec 15th weigh in. Try feeding in a dark room with his light off and make sure the feeder is warm it should trigger his feeding response and dont give up, sometimes it takes my little guy 10 minutes to "hunt" the feeder. He will strike a couple of times then go for the kill so to speak. Also keep handling short for now as not to stress the little guy out, but do continue to handle him since it is important to tame them down now even though they tend to get better with striking as they gain size.