8 month hunger strike

[RumDemon]

Hi everyone. Something I'm sure you hear all the time, especially from newer forum members so I'm really sorry for asking, but I could use some help. I have a pinstripe BP who is just turning 2 years old. The last time he fed was January 2016, he weighed 854g then.

When we first got him (at about 5 months old) he would stike feed really nicely but then at about a year old he became quite a shy feeder and I started to find that he wouldn't strike but if I just left the rat with him over night (frozen thawed of course) then he would have eaten it by the morning. This stopped quite suddenly in January, for no apparent reason, (no major change in habitat, temps all good, etc etc). He continued to look healthy, he was bright and alert and shed without issue but just seemed totally uninterested in feeding. I tried smaller rats (he was on large weaners), gerbils and multis, braining, hairdryers, the lot but he was not interested in any of it.

On 14/08/2016 he weighed in at 749g so had lost nearly 15% of his body weight. I had been speaking to my local reptile specialist shop all the while (very lucky to have a great shop a couple of miles from where I live who really seem to know their stuff). At this stage they said I should bring him in to board with then for a few weeks to remove my habit from the equation and work from there.

We did this but he still wouldn't eat. They have now assist fed him on 3 occasions over the last 3 weeks, just rat pups to get something in him. He has digested the feed fine but still will not feed on his own it seems.

I have to collect him from the shop on Saturday as the bill is racking up and also I really don't want them to continue to assist feed him all the time. I'll bring him home and give his viv a really good clean and a bit of a change around before I put him in. I'll probably then leave him alone for a week and try again next weekend with a pup or something small.

Any advise or comments would be welcome. Am I missing something? I've tried to do my research and make sure I'm not missing anything but I'm stumped and it seems the shop are too!?

[pixiepup]

Now, please take my advice with a grain of salt....my mom's 7 year old BP, Cooper, didn't eat for a long time. He had a bad experience with f/t and would not accept it. He wouldn't even show her that he was hungry, he only showed me because I hadn't given him f/t.


We dropped a live mouse in with him and he IMMEDIATELY ate. He now eats weekly without fail, but it is on live. He won't accept f/t anymore at ALL. This might be your BP's problem, it might not be. I'm not saying all keepers should feed live...just that some snakes won't accept f/t even if they did before.

It might be helpful to you, it might not be, I just thought I should add my

[Neal]

Hi everyone. Something I'm sure you hear all the time, especially from newer forum members so I'm really sorry for asking, but I could use some help. I have a pinstripe BP who is just turning 2 years old. The last time he fed was January 2016, he weighed 854g then.

When we first got him (at about 5 months old) he would stike feed really nicely but then at about a year old he became quite a shy feeder and I started to find that he wouldn't strike but if I just left the rat with him over night (frozen thawed of course) then he would have eaten it by the morning. This stopped quite suddenly in January, for no apparent reason, (no major change in habitat, temps all good, etc etc). He continued to look healthy, he was bright and alert and shed without issue but just seemed totally uninterested in feeding. I tried smaller rats (he was on large weaners), gerbils and multis, braining, hairdryers, the lot but he was not interested in any of it.

On 14/08/2016 he weighed in at 749g so had lost nearly 15% of his body weight. I had been speaking to my local reptile specialist shop all the while (very lucky to have a great shop a couple of miles from where I live who really seem to know their stuff). At this stage they said I should bring him in to board with then for a few weeks to remove my habit from the equation and work from there.

We did this but he still wouldn't eat. They have now assist fed him on 3 occasions over the last 3 weeks, just rat pups to get something in him. He has digested the feed fine but still will not feed on his own it seems.

I have to collect him from the shop on Saturday as the bill is racking up and also I really don't want them to continue to assist feed him all the time. I'll bring him home and give his viv a really good clean and a bit of a change around before I put him in. I'll probably then leave him alone for a week and try again next weekend with a pup or something small.

Any advise or comments would be welcome. Am I missing something? I've tried to do my research and make sure I'm not missing anything but I'm stumped and it seems the shop are too!?

Bring him home, if you need to assist feed, I can help explain how to do that, but we'll worry about that later. Assist feeding him every week is only going to stress him out more. Get him back in his enclosure, check your temps and make sure everything is spot on. On a total unrelated note at the moment, can you post a picture or two of his enclosure when you have a moment.

So, get him home, let him settle in, don't bother him for a week, just make sure he has water, let him resettle in home. After you give him about a week to settle in, try giving him a f/t rat, but once you heat it up, try to scent the room to trigger a feeding response in him. This may or may not help, but it won't hurt. Use a hair dryer and heat up the rat and make sure you're blowing it his way and try to give it to him. If that doesn't work let it stay with him for a few hours.

Okay, so if that doesn't work, let him be for another 3-5 days, then perhaps try live, but because he's not eating you want to closely monitor as you don't want to have anything killing your snake. I would go for a rat pup first, that way you're still trying rats even if it's smaller but the goal is to get him to eat on his own. Now still don't be alarmed if he doesn't eat. Wait a few days then you can try a mouse, I wouldn't go real big, something like a hopper, it moves a lot so it may help to trigger a feeding response, but you need to monitor the hopper while he's there.

Once we've exhausted those options, we'll go from there but for now that's what I would do if I were in your shoes.

[RumDemon]

Thanks guys.

That was my thinking, get him home because the constant assisting is going to be stressing him out. I'm collecting him tomorrow.

I don't really have a resource for live rodents so I'm hoping he gets back on the F/T, (it's all he's ever known so fingers crossed). I'll pick some little rats up when I collect him and leave him alone to settle for a week and see what happens. I tried using a hair drier but not in the actual room (as it's my son's bedroom). I will try that though so thanks for that.

The advice is reassuring because it confirms my thoughts and ideas are not too far from correct, which is helpful in itself.

I'll try to sort a photo of the viv, it's a 3 foot wooden viv with a couple of small led strip lights and a caged ceramic heat lamp at one end. I have 2 hides and some fake plants for cover but I might try to get another plant or something in order to give him some more cover.

[RumDemon]

Hi just thought I'd post a quick update to say after 8 months of fasting, I finally got our ball python to feed yesterday - TWICE!!

We collected him from the shop he had been boarding in on Saturday. He looked fine and didn't seem too stressed by the 3 assist feeds, but my plan was to just leave him alone for a week to recover. I gave his viv a really good deep clean and changed it all around, adding some extra bark for cover. When I was feeding our other snake (a corn) I noticed the python (Diego) was sat in his hide but with his head right near the opening, looking very alert. I figured "what the heck" and I rushed downstairs and defrosted a rat pup (he had been up to large weaner rats but I took some pups so that they were not too big and scary for him). Anyway, I warmed it in some hot water and then followed Neal's hair dryer suggestion - opening the viv door and blowing the rat scent straight into the viv. He stuck his head out of his hide straight away, tongue flicking like crazy! I popped the rat pup by the opening of the hide and within about a minute he grabbed it and dragged it inside the hide! I was so pleased!

10 mins later he came back to the opening of his hide and sat there, almost asking for more! I repeated the process and again he took the pup within a minute or two! I suspect, although a little stressful, the assisted feeds did actually get him back in the habit of eating and the hairdryer trick in addition to the deep clean, change around and extra cover all kind of worked together to give him that little push he needed. So after 8 very stressful months (probably more for me than him) he has finally eaten. I checked on him this morning and no signs of any dreaded regurgitation so fingers crossed he is on his way to becoming a model citizen again.

Thanks for the advise guys, it is such a relief!!!