Still not eating!

[porangi.chris]

Hi,

Would welcome some advice on Brian as we heading toward four months now and no feed.


Latest news is:

Failed on small mouse left in over night. I didn't chase Brian with this one as he has always run away from the others and seems scared by food. As a consequence I don't think he even realized it was there. Replaced paper in morning when I removed the mouse and found both Toilet 1 & 2! Just measured him at 3ft 10" and he's weighing in at 1.414kg.

Being a sad ICT teacher Brian's whole history since I had him is here

and you can see the current set up in the pictures here

This is just my own personal site so nothing for sale or to gain!!

Current temp range from low 79 - 81 and high 89 - 93. The small hides on the floor are just big enough for him. He often lifts them slightly and moves the door around as he moves!!

Any ideas?

[jkobylka]

I sounds, looks like your doing everything about right, the links are working... if he is healthy just give him lots of privacy and I'm sure he'll start eating again before long.

[mmchoppers]

Try feeding different ways( Frozen thawed, Rats) and make sure the prey is not too large, but you don't have to worry about that with mice. Only try once a week so you don't stress the snake out too much.

Thats my advice
Jordan

[tweets_4611]

Has he ever eatten for you? I glanced at that page you have, but all the feed attempts I saw were failed. How long have you had him? Sorry if all of that stuff is in another thread or something, I don't ever remember who posted what ^_^ Anyways, what was he eating last time he ate?

[porangi.chris]

Nope he has never eaten for me. He apparently ate 4 times in row for breeder before being sold to pet shop where I collected him from that same week so he didn't eat for the pet shop either not that they tried!

Not sure what I have been trying him on. Think small to medium rats and mice. Tried a gerbil once.

One item we forgot to mention when we posted was that I live in a flat next to a motorway into a city. I can't feel any vibrations but there is a bit of noise - as for the snake I have no idea what he feels or hears.

Please advise guys - I'm a at a loss

[Nordinho]

I've had the same problem for almost 3 months now. My Pastel female was scared of f/t mice and rats! I have tried everything, but she didn't want to eat. So yesterday I looked in her tub and she was out of her hide, looking very skinny. I went to the store immediately and bought a living mouse. I put the mouse in the tub and it took her less than a minute to grab that mouse

Give it a try!
Good luck

[porangi.chris]

I am so so tempted to go down the live animal route but my breeder is reluctant to recommend it. Seems to be a UK/US thing about FT and Live. Trouble is my snake was a breeding male and his last owner (a breeder) sold of a bunch of his breeding males of which Brian was one. They had all been fed on ft rats which he bred. So he has grown up on FT do I want to go down this route and get stuck on it. Maybe he just ain't hungry - I'm running out of ideas on this one!

I'm also ware my viv is slightly on the large side so am building a two tier 3ft x 18" x 18" so I can house a female as well. Its not like I don't already have enough problems with one! So maybe this is the last of two things being wrong. The other being the road noise although I think this is unlikely.

Cheers for the continued advice, live is defo an option but I may try some small rats first.

Chris

[Nordinho]

Alright, try a smaller enclosure and leave him alone for a while. I don't think road noise is the problem, animals get used to things like that. But if the smaller enclosure doesn't work, I don't think there's another option than a live rodent. I prefer f/t too, but now my girl ate, I'm very happy I fed her a living mouse!

And between me and you.....it's not THAT bad to feed live.... :eek:

[rabernet]

I think at some point, you may have to try live with Brian. I can understand your hesitance, but if it boils down to his health vs a moral delimma, I'd have to go with health (although I'm not suggesting that you are anywhere near having to make that decision at this point - if the pictures you have of him are accurate, he's not in any danger of starving to death right now).


I don't know if it helps or not, but I've always fed live, and I've never had any problems. If you decide you want to try that, please don't hesitate to ask any questions you have on how to feed live (choosing prey size, how to offer, etc).

[porangi.chris]

So...

I tried to feed him this evening, with a small rat (almost 3 inches long ex tail). He showed some interest (tongue flicking, came out of his hide to look at it) but then lost interest and began to back off and hiss when I brought it nearer to him.

It was almost like he decided it wasn't food.

Has anyone else had similar experiences and if so, what do you think they are caused by?

Thanks for the advice.