Is my male stupid or something? Feeding issue

[BriGuy31+]

Hello,

I have owned several BP over the years so I'm neither a pro nor noob. I have a male dbl het lavender/pied that is giving me trouble while eating. He will only take live food, which isn't a huge problem. I have had him for 6 months or so and has been a little finicky from the get-go. He is about 450g and a late 2013. Sometimes he appears ready to eat but when a rat pup is placed into his enclosure (41qt. breeding rack, 89 degrees hot side with multiple hides) he just does not seems to recognize that the prey item is actually food. He will search all over looking for the rat with his tongue flicking but ignores the rat pup. I have tried slightly smaller and larger rats but with the same outcome.

What can I do differently? What information did I leave out?

[T_Sauer]

I am assuming the rat pup is f/t? You said he eats live fine .... Or has he stopped eating live as well?

[rlditmars]

I think the first issue is the size of the enclosure. A 41qt tub for a 450 gram snake is very large. The snake may not be feeling secure. I would try housing him in something different(smaller) for a bit and see if that helps. I would say no larger than 28qt, but with all the proper husbandry.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Put him in a V18 tub or something similar in size and take him for a car ride

Car trip first and small enclosure second, the car trip does help I know it sound silly but I have used this trick to get some animals that had fasted for 6 months back on food after everything else had failed. Some breeders will actually ship out some non feeder animals to some other breeder friends to get them back on food as well (you just don't need to go to that extreme).

And of course the smaller enclosure just because cramped quarters are sometimes all they need.

Just some old breeder tricks you might want to give a shot to.

[BriGuy31+]

He has stopped eating live as well. I respond with more detail later tonight.


Thank you all for the help.

[T_Sauer]

I'm still curious with the most simple easy fix .... Is the rat pups they are offering f/t or live? If it is f/t .. it could be as simple as not having the prey item the proper temp or the presentation could not be gettin done in a proper enough manner .... If this snake is used to live for 6 + months, simply putting the f/t (if that's what they are using) in front of the snake doesn't work in some cases.

Sometimes ya gotta do a lil dance if ya wanna get a hug .... Granted live rat pups don't move around much anyways but I know a few of mine that I have switch from live to f/t I really have to put on a frantic show to get them to "take the bait" so to speak ..... While others I'll be lucky to get the feeder in the tub before they come out after it

[T_Sauer]

He has stopped eating live as well. I respond with more detail later tonight.


Thank you all for the help.

LOL .. Well there goes my theory ...

[BriGuy31+]

I tried f/t (at room temp and as high as 100 degrees warm) and fresh killed before and he showed the behavior noted above. I would try the dance with long tweezers and he would avoid the rat like it was in his way of finding real food. He took live about three weeks after I got him and has been on live food for 6+ months. After thinking about it, I misquoted my tub size. I have a three tub RB CB-70 Rack. I have housed my two snakes (lavender female and male dbl het dreamsicle....my first breeding project) since they where 100 grams in this enclosure. I know it's kind-of big but I didn't want to buy two racks at the time of getting back into this hobby.

He is now acting the same way towards live food. While search for prey, he seems to ignore the live rats as if it wasn't even there.

[T_Sauer]

Hmmmm ... I have a female that is @ 1600g that has always been a fast aggressive eater but just recently started doing this exact same thing ... She will actually come up and lay on top of the feeder like she is guarding it after I leave it in the tub after she refuses while I feed everyone else but then I come back to her 30 min later and she still just laying beside or on top of it .... I am just chalking it up to a seasonal fast tho seeing as how this is her first mature breeding season ..... I'm going to take the back seat now ... Hopefully some of the senior members can help ya out a lil more with their experience .. good luck

[Sweet4serpents]

You could try the bedding change trick... My blind ball has to have overly warm food, AND the fresh cage or he doesn't eat very well or at all. I read the article and thought it was bs... But I figured, Hell, why not?! Nothing else works... Spent 6 years struggling to get him to eat reliably. With both of those, he'll eat. It seems overly simple, but honestly, I'd try that before a car ride