suddenly skittish

[Chard]

Hey all, another curious question: recently jimmy has been half-heartedly striking at his food. He has been switched to rats just last month, and took the first few just fine. But lately he seems to second guess each of his strikes, and won't actually hold onto his prey. The rat I have now is thoroughly freaked due to all kinds of 'attention'. Will this continue? Should I stun the rat?

[dr del]

Hi,


Are you sure he isn't just not hungry and defensive striking at it to make it go away and leave him alone?

When you changed him onto rats what size are they and what size is he?

Could you also describe the feeding routine you go through? Are you taking the rat out if he doesn't eat it within 20 minutes and then leaving him in peace for 7 days and trying again?

Has anything else changed husbandry wise lately? When did he last sucessfully eat for you?

If you can give us this info it might help pin down the problem. Also do you have a cage set up for the rat as leaving him in the same tank could obviously lead to some extremely serious problems.


dr del

[Chard]

not sure about being defensive, he's never struck out in defense before. As for the size, the rat is just smaller than the circumference of jimmys widest part. Generally I feed him once a week on fridays, but this time he he didn't eat within 15 minutes so I just called it quits for the weekend and I tried yesterday again, which I take may have been a bad thing. Nothing changed husbandry-wise for a long time now; I changed his substrate type about a month-and-a-half ago, which didn't seem do disturb his eating habits. The last he ate was on June 29.

For now, I guess I will let him chill until Friday and try again. The rat does not stay in the cage with jimmy, I take him out if he isn't eaten and keep him in a separate cage.