Feeding help

[alilshadee]

I'm sure you guys have heard this before..My best eaters have stopped eating completely..Temps are perfect, matter of fact everything is pretty right on, but all my snakes have refused to eat..not even interested..nayone in the VA area or anywhere that would maybe like to talk to me on the phone to give some good advice?

[tigerlily]

What are you feeding? It's possible that you have been overfeeding and they are fasting to 'catch up'.

[Petboy15]

The exact sma ething happened to me tonight and last week! And im near you, in MD.Maybe the weather? That is the only reason I can think of.
Im interested in the answer too.

[alilshadee]

My female butterscotch ghost het is offered a med mouse, the other ghost male het a small mouse, my reg male med mouse and we won't go into my 3 female wild caught who are about 1000 grams, pretty big, been dewormed shot and all...sooooo I'm not sure where to even start with them....I would like all my snakes to eat f/t..never have feed live before and I'm not sure how to do it.....but like Pet said it's strange because my males where going crazy every Friday to eat, but the past 3 or 4 weeks nothing.

[carmich132]

I had the same problem with my boy. All of his temps/humidity/everything were right on and he didn't eat for the last 4 weeks, but finally took his rat last night. He will only take live, and if your's still hasn't eaten, you might want to try that, just make sure you monitor the whole process so the mouse/rat never gets a chance to injure your snake.

[alilshadee]

I have never fed my snakes live before and feel kind of uneasy about it. I've heard some people say that you need to bang the mouse against the wall or table and really I'm not into that..What's the process of feeding live prey to your snake?

[SatanicIntention]

Feeding live is really no different than feeding frozen/thawed prey. Just no thawing involved!

You need to pre-scent the room for 20-30 minutes, and keep the room dark. Just leave the secured mice in the room so the snakes know what is going to happen.

After 30 minutes or so have passed, open a tub, drop the mouse in on the opposite side of the snake(do not remove anything from the cage, the snake is very capable of catching the mouse on its own), and close the tub/cage. Continue down the line until everyone has a mouse, and then sit quietly across the room and wait. It helps if the room is dark for shy eaters. You can leave the mice for 10-20 minutes in the cage with the snake. If, by that time, any haven't eaten, just remove the mouse until the same time next week when you feed.

That's how I feed and everyone has been eating throughout the winter(except for Amani, but she's queen.. ).

Hope that helps. And don't worry about feeding live, snakes haven't evolved this long just to be outsmarted by a mouse. Just be sure to do it safely so they are expecting a feed.