What are some variables you may have changed for your finicky eaters?

[Dramatron]

I got my first BP at the beginning of June this year. She has still not eaten for me which is frustrating, but not a super serious concern when considering all the other owners that have been through this same experience. I am wondering though, what variables might you have changed that got your BP to start eating if you were experiencing something similar? Did it just take time? Or maybe changes with the time of feeding, the light in the room? My temps/humidity are on point other than it getting a little cold in my room at night. I have considered feeding her live (she is on rat pups at the moment) to hopefully get something in her, but I fear this would be very counter intuitive in the grand scheme of switching her to F/T. Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks!

[Bigfish1975]

It could be one or a combination of factors. What was she feeding on before? What type of bedding was she on? Does she have a hide? How old is she? If she's not losing any weight it may be just a matter of waiting it out. I had one of my adult female pieds not eat for 6 months. She weighed 3800 grams when I got her so not a big concern. She had been eating great prior to me getting her. I still bred her and got a great first clutch from her of 8 eggs. I got her cleaned up and the day after laying she ate a small live rat. A few days later another and she is now eating everything insight. I feed all my snakes live and just happened to have some frozen rats which she also eats. So it could just take time and patience. Check with the breeder and try to mirror what they set up. Good luck

Mike

[Dramatron]

She was feeding on rat pups prior to me getting her, the breeder did not specify if they were live or not but I've been assuming they were live. He also said she was on aspen previously and I have her on reptibark at the moment. She has two hides, on the warm and cool sides and is about 8 months old, roughly 160 grams last time I weighed her. Whenever she smells rat she comes out and is very curious, but once I bring the rat in the enclosure she doesn't pursue it and eventually ends up striking the rat as if it is a threat.

[Bigfish1975]

Gotcha, so there does seem to be some changes in her environment. I recently sold a yearling to a guy. She was a great feeder for me. She was raised on sani chips with me. He put her on 3 different substrates before moving her to sani chips. She ate within 2 days after the switch. She's eaten ever since. You could consider feeding her in another tub with aspen in it and see if it helps.

Mike

[Dramatron]

Wow that's very interesting, just the type of odd variable change that I was speaking of. I'll definitely give it a try! Thanks Mike

[Bigfish1975]

No problem at all. It can get pretty annoying when they don't eat. Its great when they turn on, put on weight and drop nice, big, perfect all pied clutches though. That was a nice payoff for my patience. By the way, what BP did you get?

[BCS]

If she was fed live, this is most likely the reason. A month is a long time to acclimate to new substrate and in my experience, this is definitely something that wont stop her from eating. I have bought snakes who were on newspaper and at the time I used news paper and they still wouldn't eat. I have now moved all my snakes (some of them I have had on news paper for two years) and all of them eat just fine. Only four eat F/T but live is cheaper for me, so I feed mostly live to the rest of my snakes.

If you want to try changing substrate, that is your choice but I really think that if she was fed on live, this is most likely the reason she is not eating your F/T offerings.

[Dramatron]

If this is the case what would be your best suggestion on switching her over to F/T? Until now I've just been waiting it out and figuring that she will eat once she's hungry enough. I assume once she learns that the F/T offerings are food she will start eating them up.

[Dramatron]

I ended up getting a nice Kingpin. Also nice considering I'm looking at producing BELs in the future.

[BCS]

Well, 160g for a 8 month old is a little small IMO so either she is a horrible eater to begin with or she was less since she was a "seller".

Switching over to F/T is something I have only done with 1-4 month old snakes... anything that has been fed over that seems impossible. I have a few snakes that will not take F/T not matter what I do. The best way to get a snake to take F/T is to just keep offering it. But at one point you have to draw the line and that choice is up to you. If feeding live is something that really bothers you, you may have to give up the female if she continues to refuse F/T.